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SOCIAL LIFE IN 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 




HOIVIE FROM THE VISIT. Frontispiece. 



SOCIAL LIFE m 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 



BY 
MARY CAROLINE CRAWFORD 

AUTHOR OF OLD BOSTON DAYS AND WAYS," "ROMANTIC DAYS 
IN OLD BOSTON," ETC. 



Illustrated 



NON'REFERTi 




cQWYAD-ggs 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1914 






3 




Copyright^ 1914i 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 



Published, October, 1914 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. 



FOREWORD 

Good Americans are becoming more deeply 
interested, with each year that passes, in the 
intimate every-day hfe of those who built up 
this country. Though we are less and less con- 
cerned all the time about the battles fought as a 
means to the establishment of our United States, 
we care increasingly for the human nature of the 
men who did the fighting and for the beauty of 
character and countenance which distinguished 
the wives and daughters of those men. After 
telling each other for a couple of centuries that 
the American home is the foundation of the Re- 
public, we are at last beginning to prove that 
we believe it by showing real interest in that 
home and in those who founded it. Thus the 
education that qualified for the home, the pro- 
fessions, and industries that maintained it, 
the religion that nourished it, the love that 
was its backbone, the hospitality exercised in 
it, the books that provided subjects for its con- 
versation, the journeys that heightened its 
allurements, the amusements that brightened 
its days of hard work — all these aspects of 
home and home-life are being recognized as of 



vi FOREWORD 

vital importance, if we would truly understand 
the ideals behind American civilization. 

But as our desire grows to know more and 
more about early manners and customs in this 
country, means of acquiring that knowledge 
are constantly diminishing. Only in very 
large and wealthy libraries can now be found 
files of Colonial newspapers — than which no 
source of information is more valuable. And 
only here and there, in the crowded life of our 
time, is to be met the man or the woman having 
the temperament, the sympathy, and the pa- 
tience necessary to research which will ex- 
tract material of real value from these and 
other sources. Three such, Mrs. Harriette M. 
Forbes of Worcester, Mrs. Charles Knowles 
Bolton of Brookline, and Mrs. James de Forest 
Shelton of Derby, Connecticut, have been most 
kind in placing at my disposal the results of 
much devout digging in their several fields of 
scholarshij), and to them, as to Mr. Clifton 
Johnson, who procured for me several rare 
illustrations of old-time school-books, I am 
very glad here to acknowledge my deep in- 
debtedness. 

To the inspiration of Alice Morse Earle's 
books on Old New England; to the invaluable 
files of the New England Magazine; to the 
Houghton Mifflin Company; to G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons; Charles Scribner's Sons; the W. 



FOREWORD vii 

B. Clarke Company of Boston; and to the 
editors of McClure's Magazine, I likewise give 
my thanks for quotation privileges more specif- 
ically acknowledged in the text of the book. 
Librarians not a few have greatly helped me, 
also, notably those in charge of the several 
New England colleges, at the American Anti- 
quarian Society in Worcester, at the Boston 
Athenaeum, and at the Boston Public Library. 
If I have succeeded in making the social life of 
old New England a real thing to my readers, it 
is because of the generous cooperation which 
has thus been extended to me. One of the very 
nicest things about writing a book like this is 
the deepened belief which is gained in the in- 
nate kindliness and helpfulness of people every- 
where. If we of to-day are no longer neighbors 
in the old New England sense of the word, we 
are more than ever neighbors in the true sense; 
and no one knows this better than the author, 
who must constantly send letters to strangers 
and ask favors of everybody. It is my sincere 
hope that the scores of people upon whose time 
I have thus trespassed will feel that it has all 
been worth while, in that we have together 
been able to humanize for future generations 
New Englanders of a vanished day. 

M. c. c. 
Boston, July, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Foreword ....... v 

I. In the Little Red Schoolhouse . . 1 

II. Going to College 46 

III. Choosing a Profession . . . .112 

IV. " 'Tending Meetin' " 145 

V. Getting Married . • 196 

VI. Setting Up Housekeeping . . . 233 

VII. Keeping a Dlvry 288 

VIII. Having a Picture Taken .... 319 

IX. Reading Books 350 

X. The Occasional Journey .... 378 
XI. Singing Schools and Kindred Country 

Diversions 417 

XII. Amusements of the Big Town . . 435 

XIII. Funerals as Festivals . . . . 453 

XIV. St. Pumpkin's Day and Other Honored 

Holidays 472 

XV. Christmas Under the Ban . . . 494 

Index . 507 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Home from the Vispt Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The Little Red Schoolhouse, Sandgate, Bennington 

Co., Vt 14 

Picture Alphabet op Religious Jingles ... 15 

A ScHOOL^L^.STER OF Long Ago 22 

The Rogers Page 23 

A Typical Horn - Book 23 

Earuest Representation of Harvard College 

Buildings Extant 60 

South Middle Hall, the Oldest Yale Building Still 

Standing. Built in 1752 61 

Old Baptist Meeting House, Providence, R. L . 88 
Dartaiouth Tower and Old Pine Stump ... 89 
Samson Occom, the Indl\n Who Helped in the Found- 
ing OF Dartmouth College 89 

West College (Williams College), 1790 . . . 102 

President's House, Williams College .... 102 

Governor Bowdoin 103 

The Chapel, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt. 103 

Dr. James Lloyd 132 

James Otis 133 

An Old Bookbinder's Advertisement .... 140 

Robert Bailey Thomas 140 

The Last of the Farm Boys and His Pair of Oxen . 141 

The Old Ship, Hlntgham, Mass. Built in 1681 . . 146 
Announcement of the Installation of a New Organ 

AT King's Church, Providence, in 1771 . . 147 

A Page of the Old Bay Psalm Book .... 156 
The Organ Upon Which Oliver Holden Harmonized 

" Coronation " 157 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGB 

St. Paul's Church, Wickford, R. 1 162 

Meeting House at Rocky Hill, Amesbury, Mass., 

Showing Box Pews 163 

Hester Prynne of " The Scarlet Letter " . . 186 

A Fine Old Meeting House, Bennington, Vt. . . 187 

Synagogue Yeshuat Israel, Newport, R. I. . . 190 
Interior of Trinity Church, Newport, R. I. Built 

in 1725 V . . . .191 

The John Alden House, Duxbury, Mass. Built 1653 204 
The Reverend Arthur Browne, of Portsmouth, 

N. H 205 

Governor John Endicott 216 

Governor John Winthrop . . . . . . . 216 

A Wedding Party in Boston in 1756 .... 217 

Ancient House at Plymouth 234 

The Old Gambrel - Roofed House, Cambridge, Mass. 

Birthplace of Oliver Wendell Holmes 235 
Stone Mansion at Newburyport, Mass. Built in 

1636 238 

A Brave Display of Pewter 239 

A Fireplace with a Real Chimney Corner . . 258 

Some Retired Spinning Wheels 259 

Dressed to go Calling 276 

A New England Village, Showing Elm St., Framing- 
ham, Mass 277 

Kitchen of the Dorothy Q. House, Quincy, Mass. . 286 
Compass and Sun - Dial Owned by Roger Williams 
AND Presumably Used by Him in His Journey 

INTO Exile in 1635 287 

A Fine Example of a Highboy 287 

State Street, Boston, One Hundred Years Ago 306 

Boston's Old South Meeting House, about 1800 . 307 

Cotton Mather 320 

Samuel Sewall 321 

The Copley Family, Showing the Artist in the 

Background 326 

General Henry Knox 327 

Mrs. John Trumbull 332 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 

FACING PAGE 

Mrs. R. C. Derby 333 

A Rare Wax Portrait op Ouver Holden, Composer 

OF " Coronation " 338 

Rev. John Pierpont, His Wife and Daughter . . 339 

Mrs. Mercy Warren 356 

Abigail Adams 356 

Washington Irving 357 

A View of Providence, R. I., about 1824 . , . 384 

Williams Tavern in Marlborough, Mass. . . . 384 
Interior of the Whipple House, Ipswich, Mass., 

Formerly a Tavern 385 

" The Earl of Halifax " Inn, Portsmouth, N. H., 

Kept by John Stavers in 1761 .... 392 

Tap Room, Wayside Inn, Sudbury, Mass. . . . 393 

The Wayside Inn 428 

A Flock of Merino Sheep in a New England Pasture 429 
Playing - Card Invitation from John Brown of 

Providence for a Dance at His New House, 

1788 438 

A Sonata of Clementi 439 

Pumpkin Time 472 

Thanksgiving Preparations 473 

King's Chapel, Boston, Hung with Christmas Greens 

and Showing the Coats of Arms of the Various 

Royal Governors ...... 504 

Interior of the Old Meeting House at Bennington, 

Vt 505 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD 
NEW ENGLAND 



CHAPTER I 

IN THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE 

'V TO tradition is cherished more lovingly by 
r^ the mass of the American people than 
that of the " little red schoolhouse." 
From this humble institution, we have always 
felt, went forth influences which have been of 
inestimable value in building up a sturdy, self- 
respecting manhood and womanhood in this 
country. We have liked to read stories in the 
opening chapters of which John Smith, an 
awkward lad of twelve, is shown stealing ad- 
miring glances over the top of his geography 
at Sally Jones, a pink-cheeked, flaxen-haired 
maiden of ten, in whose behalf he often rises 
to quite heroic proportions — outside of school 
hours. Nor were they mere legends — all 
those tales about the purifying effect upon 



2 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

John of his adoration of Sally. There was a 
basis of real fact in the contention that it was 
good for him and not bad for her to carry her 
books to and from school and gladly to offer 
her at recess the red-cheeked apple which a 
fond mother had designed for her " own boy's " 
luncheon. 

Sometimes John and Sally married after their 
school days were over; sometimes their little 
romance died a natural death, when the stern 
realities of life came to claim their attention. 
But it is of them and their playmates, none the 
less, that we think with reminiscent tenderness 
when, during a drive or motor trip through the 
winding roads of old New England, we come 
suddenly, at a cross-roads corner, upon a sur- 
viving district schoolhouse. The building is 
probably white now, as a result of the " clean 
up and paint up " spirit which, through our 
village improvement societies, has penetrated 
to even the remotest settlements. But in our 
mind's eye it easily takes on the ruddy glow of 
former days; and soon we see, behind the 
figures of John Smith and Sally Jones, John's 
grandmother and Sally's grandfather, quaint 
little people who here pored over the curious 
pages of the '* New England Primer", shivered 
in winter before the reluctant fire made of 
green pine boughs, or in summer stitched the 
samplers of Colonial days and toiled painfully 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 3 

with the primitive horn-book. Our historical 
sequence gets a Httle mixed in the flood of 
emotion awakened by the sight of the deserted 
schoolhouse. But we know that we are glad to 
have seen it and glad, too, to belong to people 
who, at the very outset of their career in the 
New World, provided as best they could " for 
the perpetuation of learning among us." 

As might have been expected, Boston was 
the first town in New England to take public 
action in regard to setting up a school. In 1635 
it was agreed in town meeting that " Our 
brother Philemon Parmont shall be entreated 
to become a scoolemaster for the teaching and 
nourtering of children with us." It was pro- 
vided that Master Parmont should receive as 
recompense for such " nourtering " thirty acres 
of land as well as donations. Soon a " garden 
plot " was voted to Mr. Daniel Maude as 
schoolmaster; and in the records of 1636 may 
be found a list of the subscriptions of all the 
principal inhabitants of the town who gave 
from four shillings up to ten pounds each 
towards Mr. Maude's maintenance. 

Massachusetts established schools by law in 
1642, ordering each town of fifty householders 
to " appoint one within their town to teach all 
such children as shall resort to him to read and 
write." The selectmen of every town were 
required to have a " vigilant eye over their 



4 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

brethren and neighbors, and see that none of 
them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of 
their families, as not to endeavour to teach 
their children and apprentices so much learning 
as may enable them perfectly to read the 
English tongue and obtain a knowledge of the 
laws." It was even provided that, if parents 
were neglectful of their duties in the matter of 
education, their children might be taken from 
them and given to the care of others not so 
" unnatural! " 

The law of 1642 enjoined universal education 
but did not make it free; nor did it impose 
any penalty upon municipal corporations for 
neglecting to maintain a school. But the 
people responded so generally to the spirit of 
the law that Governor Winthrop was able to 
write : 

" Divers free schools were erected as in Rox- 
bury (for maintenance whereof every inhabitant 
bound some house or land for a yearly allow- 
ance forever), and at Boston where they made 
an order to allow fifty pounds and a house, to 
the master, and thirty pounds to an usher 
who should, also, teach to read and write and 
cipher; and Indians' children were to be taught 
freely, and the charge to be by yearly contribu- 
tion, either by voluntary allowance, or by rate 
of such as refused, etc.; and this order was 
confirmed by the General Court. Other towns 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 5 

did the like, providing maintenance by several 
means." 

R. C. Waterston has interestingly established 
an intimate relationship between this first free 
school in Boston and Reverend John Cotton. 
In the Boston of Lincolnshire, England, from 
which Cotton had emigrated to New England, 
a free grammar school had been established by 
Queen Mary as early as 1554, the first year of 
her reign. In this school Latin and Greek were 
taught, and it was quite natural, therefore, 
that a lover of learning, like Cotton, should 
have immediately concerned himself, upon set- 
tling in the New World, with the inception here 
of an institution similar to the one with whose 
government he had been deeply concerned in 
old Boston. The fact that the master of the 
Lincolnshire school had " a house rent-free " 
is held to be reason that, besides the fifty 
pounds allowed to the Boston teacher in 1645, 
*' a house for him to live in " was also provided. 

In some of the towns of Massachusetts, 
schools, of course, had been established well in 
advance of the 1642 law which made them a 
necessity. Dorchester, Ipswich, and Salem had- 
schools early in the history of the colony. New 
Haven and Hartford founded schools in 1638 
and 1641 respectively, while Newport had a 
school in 1640. Woburn, Massachusetts, very 
early in its history had an interesting " dame 



6 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

school " kept by Mrs. Walker, a widow who 
lived in the center of the town and taught 
Woburn youth to read and write in a room of 
her own home. How profitable pedagogy then 
was as a profession may be judged from the 
fact that, although the town in 1641 agreed to 
pay this woman ten shillings annually for her 
services as teacher, her net income, at the end 
of the first year, was only one shilling and three- 
pence by reason of the fact that seven shillings 
had already been deducted for her taxes, and 
various other amounts for " produce which she 
had received ! " 

The Roxbury Latin School was a very early 
institution. It owed its establishment chiefly 
to the Apostle Eliot and dates from 1645 — 
only ten years later than the time when Phile- 
mon Parmont set up as a " scoolemaster " in 
neighboring Boston. It has been exceedingly 
prosperous almost from the beginning, by 
reason of the fact that Thomas Bell, who died 
in 1671, left a large quantity of Roxbury real 
estate for its continued maintenance and sup- 
port. It is a close rival in the picturesqueness 
of its history to the Boston Latin School. 

The most interesting early schoolmaster of 
this venerable institution was Ezekiel Cheever, 
who was born in London in 1614 and first came 
to the Boston of New England when he was 
twenty-three years old. Not at that tender 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 7 

age did he enter upon his career as a Boston 
Latin School teacher, however. He was suc- 
cessively at New Haven, Ipswich, and Charles- 
town before, at the age of fifty-six, he received 
from the great men of Boston the keys of its 
most famous school. This was in 1670. He 
died in 1708, at the ripe age of ninety-four, and 
was thus described by Judge Sewall in his 
diary: " He labored in his calling, skilfully, 
diligently, constantly, religiously, seventy years, 
— a rare instance of piety, health, strength, 
serviceableness. The welfare of the Province 
was much upon his spirit. He abominated 
periwigs." Cheever was buried from the school- 
house where he had long held his sway and made 
his home. His " Accidence " continued to hold 
the place of honor for a century among Latin 
school-books. The only personal portrait we 
have of him was furnished by his pupil, the 
Reverend Samuel Maxwell, who once wrote: 
" He wore a long white beard, terminating in a 
point, and when he stroked his beard to the 
point it was a sign for the boys to stand clear." 
Phillips Brooks, however, who was always a 
loyal Latin School boy and who wrote the Me- 
morial Address on the occasion of the^ school's 
250th anniversary (in 1885), insists that it was 
" the eternal terror and no mere earthly rage " 
which burned in Master Cheever's eye on these 
occasions when his hand followed his beard to 



8 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

its uttermost point. That he " wrestled with 
the Lord " often and long over the souls of his 
pupils is well known. 

We are, however, proceeding too fast and too 
far. The days of Cheever's preeminence as a 
teacher were two generations later than the 
inception of the " divers free schools " in towns 
around Boston to which Winthrop had refer- 
ence. Dorchester was one of these towns, and 
the directions there given, in 1645, to the 
schoolmaster by the town fathers are delight- 
fully quaint. It was provided that in the 
warmer months the school day should be from 
seven in the morning until five in the afternoon, 
while during the colder and darker months the 
hours were from eight to four. There was, 
however, a midday intermission from eleven to 
one, except on Monday. Then we read: 

" The master shall call his scholars together 
between twelve and one of the clock to examine 
them what they have learned, at which time 
also he shall take notice of any misdemeanor 
or outrage that any of his scholars shall have 
committed on the sabbath, to the end that at 
some convenient time due admonition. and cor- 
rection may be administered. 

" He shall diligently instruct both in humane 
and good literature, and likewise in point of 
good manners and dutiful behavior towards all, 
especially their superiors. Every day of the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 9 

week at two of the clock in the afternoon, he 
shall catechise his scholars in the principles of 
the Christian religion. 

" He shall faithfully do his best to benefit his 
scholars, and not remain away from school 
unless necessary. He shall equally and im- 
partially teach such as are placed in his care, 
no matter whether their parents be poor or 
rich. 

" It is to be a chief part of the schoolmaster's 
religious care to commend his scholars and his 
labors amongst them unto God by prayer 
morning and evening, taking care that his 
scholars do reverently attend during the same. 

" The rod of correction is a rule of God neces- 
sary sometimes to be used upon children. The 
schoolmaster shall have full power to punish 
all or any of his scholars, no matter who they 
are. No parent or other person living in the 
place shall go about to hinder the master in 
this. But if any parent or others shall think 
there is just cause for complaint against the 
master for too much severity, they shall have 
liberty to tell him so in friendly and loving 
way." 

To Dedham, Massachusetts, should be 
ascribed the honor of having established the 
first public school in America in the sense in 
which we of to-day understand the term: a 
school, that is, established by the voters or 



10 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

freemen of the town and supported by general 
taxation. The settlement of Dedham — origi- 
nally called Contentment — was begun in 1635, 
and the first recorded birth in the town was on 
June 21 of that year. Ere this first-born of the 
new settlement was a year and a half old, a 
committee had been appointed (January 1, 
1637) " to contrive the Fabricke of a meeting- 
house; " and in this meeting-house seven years 
later the first free public school was established 
by the following vote: 

" The said Inhabitants, taking into Consider- 
ation the great necessitie of providing some 
means for the Education of the youth in our 
s'd Towne, did with an unanimous consent de- 
clare by voate their willingness to promote that 
worke, promising to put too their hands, to 
provide maintenance for a Free Schoole in our 
said Towne. 

*' And farther did resolve and consent, tes- 
tifying it by voate, to rayse the summe of 
Twenty pounds per annu towards the maintain- 
ing of a Schoole Mr to keep a free School in our 
s'd towne. 

" And also did resolve and consent to betrust 
the s'd 20 pound pr annu & certain lands in our 
Towne formerly set apart for publique use, into 
the hand of Feoffees to be presently chosen by 
themselves, to imploy the s'd 20 pounds and 
the land afores'd to be improved for the use of 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 11 

the said Schoole: that as the profits shall airise 
from ye s'd land, every man may be proportion- 
ally abated of his some of the s'd 20 pounds 
aforesaid, freely to be given to ye use aforesaid. 
And yt ye said Feofees shall have power to make 
a Rate for the necessary charg of improving 
the s'd land; they giving account thereof to 
the Towne, or to those whome they should 
depute. 

" John Hunting, Eldr Eliazer Lusher, Francis 
Chickering, John Dwight & Michael Powell, 
are chosen Feofees and betrusted in the behalf 
of the Schoole as aforesaid." 

Dedham was much too enterprising to oblige 
its students to put up longer than was actually 
necessary with the inconveniences of a building 
not built to be a school; and in January, 1648- 
1649, it was voted at town meeting to erect 
what should serve both as a schoolhouse and 
watch-house. The dimensions used in this 
structure have been preserved in the town 
records. They show us that the schoolhouse 
part of the building was eighteen feet long — 
fourteen feet besides the chimney — and fif- 
teen feet wide; the watch-house consisted of a 
lean-to six feet wide and set at the back of the 
chimney. Thus we have only to imagine, as 
one writer has picturesquely put it, " the busy 
hum of the school work filling the east room by 
day and the faithful watching of the sentinel 



12 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

from the windows of the western lean-to during 
the long and lonely nights, to understand how 
child and man in those old days performed their 
several parts in laying the foundation of a free 
school and a free state." 

Dedham's school enterprise differed from that 
of many another New England town in that its 
educational expenditures were regularly pro- 
vided for, and the man entrusted with the train- 
ing of its youth adequately paid for his work. 
We find it written down as the vote of eighty- 
four " freemen," who assembled in 1651 to 
legislate on these matters, that the " settled 
mayntenance or wages of the schoolmr : shall be 
20 pounds p ann at ye leaste." This at a time 
when men hired in some other Massachusetts 
towns were being given one pound " to tech the 
biger children." So wretchedly, indeed, were 
many of the early schoolmasters paid that they 
frequently served summonses, acted as court 
messengers, and even dug graves to eke out 
their slender incomes. One case is extant of a 
schoolmaster who took in washing! 

Yet all the while, more schools and better 
schools were being cherished as an ideal. 
"Lord, for schools everywhere among us!" 
prayed the great and good John Eliot at a synod 
of the Boston churches in the early days of the 
settlement. " Oh, that our schools may flour- 
ish! That every member of this assembly may 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 13 

go home and procure a good school to be en- 
couraged in the town where he hves. That 
before we die we may see a good school in every 
plantation in the country! " Eliot died in 1690. 
How slowly his prayer was answered may be 
seen in a town report of nearly thirty years 
later, which reflects an average community's 
attitude on school matters: 

" December 7, 1719: Voted that we will hier 
a school master, if we can hier one in town for 
this winter till the last of March insuing the 
Date here of, upon the following conditions, viz; 
Wrighters to pay four pence a week and Reeders 
three pence a week and the Rest to be paid by 
the town." 

*' November, 1724: Boys from six to twelve 
years of age shall pay the schoolmaster whether 
they go to school or not, four pence a week for 
Wrighters, and three pence a week for Reeders." 

In this town a special committee was soon 
appointed to have educational matters in 
charge, and we read under date of November 2, 
1737, that these citizens were empowered to 
hire a schoolmaster " as cheap as they can and 
as speedy as they can." 

Not long after this the great question of 
general taxation for free public schools became 
an issue everj^where, and the step, though op- 
posed by many who had no children, finally 
prevailed. Often the district and not the town 



14 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

was the unit of school management, however, 
and it was therefore only intermittently that 
education was dispensed in the rude little 
structure erected for the purpose. Thus, from 
the town meeting reports of one community, 
may be read: 

" 1786: Voted not to have schooling this 
winter. 

" 1787: Voted to raise the sum of £10 and 
divide it among the five school districts, each 
district to receive 40s. 

" 1789: No money appropriated for schools 
on account of building the meeting house. 

" 1790: The building erected on the hill for 
a pest house was removed into the town street 
for a school house." 

The most cheerful things about these early 
school buildings was the color they were painted. 
Latterly, there has been an attempt to shatter 
one of our cherished New England traditions 
by asserting that this color was not red. But 
the weight of evidence is all on the other side; 
the *' little red schoolhouse " remains. It was 
usually a small, one-room building — this 
schoolhouse — which was entered through a 
shed-like hallway in which wood was piled and 
where hats, coats, and dinner-pails were also 
stored. Sometimes wood was furnished by the 
parents, the child with a stingy father being 
then, by common consent, denied intimate re- 




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OLD NEW ENGLAND 17 

Such education as girls received in the early 
days had all been in dame schools, though by 
the close of the seventeenth century some New 
England towns had made provision for '* young 
females " in short summer terms or at the 
noon hours of the boys' school. Governor 
Winthrop, notwithstanding the fact that he 
had three wives who were all educated women, 
evidently felt very strongly that girls did not 
greatly need learning. In his diary for 1645 
we find: "The Gov. of Hartford, Ct. came to 
Boston and brought his wife with him. A 
goodly young woman of special parts, who has 
fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her under- 
standing and reason which has been growing upon 
her divers years by occasion of her giving herself 
wholly to reading and writing and had written 
many books. Her husband being very tender 
and loving with her was loth to grieve her, but 
he saw his error when it was too late. For if 
she had attended her household affairs, and 
such things as belong to women, and not gone 
out of her way and calling to meddle in such 
things as are proper for men whose minds are 
stronger she had kept her wits and might have 
improved them usefully and honorably in the 
place God had set her." 

Notwithstanding the sad fate of this wife of 
a Connecticut governor, it was in Connecticut 
that there was established the first school ex- 



18 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

clusively for girls in branches not taught in the 
common schools. This dates from 1780 and 
was opened in Middletown by William Wood- 
bridge, a graduate of Yale College. Its classes 
were held in the evenings, and the branches 
taught were Grammar, Geography, and the Art 
of Composition. Not very disturbing subjects; 
yet popular sentiment was strongly against the 
movement. *' Who," it was demanded, " will 
cook our food and mend our clothes if girls are 
to be taught philosophy and astronomy? " An 
explanation of the great difficulty that most 
American women of to-day experience in keeping 
their check-books straight may be found in the 
ridicule accorded New England women when 
they first undertook to study mental arithmetic. 
'' If you expect to become widows and carry 
pork to market," they were told, " it may be 
well enough to study mental arithmetic. Other- 
wise keep to the womanly branches." In short, 
a girl who could read, sew, and recite the shorter 
catechism was held to have acquired all the 
education she needed. Up to 1828, indeed, 
girls were admitted to the public schools only 
from April to October, the months when the 
young males of the land were productively at 
work on the farms. This was exceedingly con- 
sistent; the chief object of education in New 
England frankly, from the very first, was to 
train up a learned ministry. And girls, of 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 19 

course, did not enter into this consideration. 
One Anne Hutchinson had been enough. 

Hampton, New Hampshire, however, stands 
out from all other New England towns in that 
it made definite provision, in its very first vote 
on school matters, that girls, as well as boys, 
were to share in its educational privileges. 
This was in 1649, and the resolution reads: 
" The selectmen of Hampton have agreed with 
John Legat for the present yeare insueing, to 
teach and instruct all the children of or belong- 
ing to our Town, both mayle and femaile (wch 
are capable of learning) to write and read and 
cast accountes (if it be desired) as diligently 
and as carefully as he is able to instruct them. 
And allso to teach and instruct them once in a 
week, or more in some Orthodox catechism pro- 
vided for them by their parents or masters. 
And in consideration hereof we have agreed to 
pay the same John Legat, the som of Twenty 
pounds in Corne, and cattle and butter." This 
was very enlightened legislation for that day; 
and Hampton may well be proud of it. 

As soon as the elementary schools were well 
established in Massachusetts, that State pro- 
vided by law (1647) that " when any town in- 
creases to the number of one hundred families 
they shall set up a grammar school the master 
thereof being able to instruct youths as far as 
they may be fitted to the university." Massa- 



20 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

chusetts meant that this law should be observed, 
too. In 1665 we find the town of Concord being 
severely criticized by the General Court for 
having no Latin School! The masters of these 
grammar schools were almost always college 
graduates; from 1671 down to the Revolution 
twenty-two of the men who thus served Plym- 
outh were happy possessors of a Harvard degree- 
Frequently the competition among select- 
men in search of a good teacher was very keen. 
Thus we learn from the Woburn records of 
1710 that " the Selectmen met to consider how 
they might obtain a suitable person to keep 
grammar school, but found it very difficult to 
do so by reason that they heard that there was 
none to be had at the Colledge. Whereupon 
they appointed Ensign John Pierce to goe to 
Boston and try if Dr. Oaks, his son, or Mr. 
Kallender's son might be obtained for that 
end." In an entry for the next month we 
read: 

" The Selectmen of Woburn being met to- 
gether Ensign John Pierce made the following 
return: that he had been at Boston to speak 
with Dr. Oaks, his son and Mr. Kallender's 
son, and found that they were already improved 
and so could not be obtained, and that he had 
made inquiry about some other suitable person 
to keep a grammar school in Woburn, but could 
not hear of any to be had. Soon after the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 21 

Selectmen were informed that it was possible 
that Sir ^ Wigglesworth might be obtained to 
teach a grammar school for our towne. Where- 
upon the said Selectmen appointed Lieut. John 
Carter to go to Cambridge, and treat with him 
about that matter. Accordingly soon after 
Lieut. Carter made return to the Selectmen 
that he had been at Cambridge, and had dis- 
course with Sir Wigglesworth with reference 
to keeping a grammar school in Woburn, and 
that the said Sir Wigglesworth did give some 
encouragement in the matter, but could not 
give a full answer until the beginning of the 
following week, and then appointed him to 
come again for an answer. But when the said 
Lieut Carter came to Cambridge at the time 
appointed, he was informed that Sir Wiggles- 
worth was engaged or gone to Casco Bay Fort 
to keep a schoole there." The best that Wo- 
burn was able to do, after two journeys to 
Boston and two more to Cambridge, was to 
secure a man who agreed to teach their grammar 
school for twelve pounds and " board " until 
he could get a better job. 

Not only was it hard to get a teacher, but it 
was exceedingly hard to get the wherewithal 
to pay him after he had been found. Woburn's 
taxes were paid in shoes, those of Hingham in 

' Graduate students who had not yet taken their Master's degree 
were called Sir by their colleges at this time. 



22 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

pails. In this latter town the cost to parents, 
in 1687, of schooling for their children was 
" four pence a week for such as learned Latin, 
such as learn English two pence a week, and 
such as learn to write and cypher, three pence 
a week." Nor could parents dodge the school- 
master tax by keeping their children at home. 
When some in Ipswich tried to do this, the 
selectmen were ordered to take a Hst of all 
children from six to twelve years of age and to 
charge their parents for their school tuition, 
whether the child went to school or not. 

The Bible, the catechism, and the psalter 
were almost the only books used in these primi- 
tive schools, and the grouping was into a " first 
Psalter class," a " second Testament class," 
and so on. For a century there were no copying 
books and no slates, the ciphering and writing 
being done on paper after a pattern set by the 
master from his ciphering book, which was a 
written copy of a printed text-book. To the 
" Rule of Three " and the " Double Rule of 
Three " a great deal of attention was given. 
Beginners acquired knowledge of the alphabet 
from a " horn-book," the name given to a 
single piece of paper pasted on a slab of wood 
and covered with a transparent sheet of horn. 
The horn served to protect from the moist 
fingers of the child the Lord's Prayer, the letters 
of the alphabet, large and small, and the vowels 




A SCHOOLMASTER OF LONG AGO. 




cuoo. 

2 



o y (If V 












5 .-C 
to. ^ »r 

ofit« 






IS. c3 ^' * 2 or 










OLD NEW ENGLAND 23 

with their consonant combinations. This 
" book " had a handle and was usually at- 
tached to the child's girdle. 

The successor of the " horn-book " was the 
famous " New England Primer," than which no 
volume, save the Bible, did more to form New 
England character. The exact date of the first 
issue of this Primer is not known, but that it 
came out prior to 1691 we are sure from the 
fact that a second edition was advertised in a 
Boston almanac for that year. " There is now 
in the Press, and will suddenly be extant," we 
there read, " A Second Impression of the Neio 
England Primer enlarged^ to which is added, 
more Directions for Spelling; the Prayer of K. 
Edward the 6th, and Verses made by Mr. Rogers 
the Martyr, left as a Legacy to his children. Sold 
by Benjamin Harris, at the London Cofee House 
in Boston^ 

Benjamin Harris is an interesting character. 
A printer by vocation, he was by avocation a 
militant Protestant. Hence he had become 
persona non grata in an England which in the 
eighties of the seventeenth century looked with 
distinct favor on Catholicism. New England 
naturally would be much more to his mind as a 
place of residence under these circumstances, 
and we accordingly find him setting up a book 
and coffee shop in Boston in the year 1686. 
Here he started Public Occurrences, the first 



24 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

newspaper printed in America, and brought out 
his famous primer. 

Originally a *' primer " was a volume of 
private devotions; but when the invention of 
printing made books cheaper, and those who 
came to pray desired to know how to read, 
also, it became the custom to include an alpha- 
bet in these little devotional works. Thus 
Harris was led by tradition, as well as by in- 
clination, to produce a primer which should be 
not only a text-book for the young but also a 
vade mecum for strenuous dissenters. No copy 
of this book issued previous to 1700 is known 
to be in existence to-day; and less than fifty 
copies have survived which were published 
during the next century, when the work was in 
the height of its popularity. Collectors there- 
fore naturally value very highly early copies 
of this work; for six copies of editions begin- 
ning with 1737 Cornelius Vanderbilt paid six 
hundred and thirty dollars not many years ago. 

The first primers that we know had for their 
frontispiece a rudely engraved portrait of the 
reigning English monarch, but when war with 
England began, various American patriots suc- 
cessively occupied this place of honor, until it 
was finally accorded, as if by Common consent, 
to George Washington. A page devoted to the 
alphabet stood at the beginning of the book. 
This was followed by several pages of *' Easy 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 25 

Syllables for Children." Then were found 
pages grading up from words of one syllable to 
words of six, after which came the Lord's 
Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. But the most 
interesting thing about the book was the 
rhymed and illustrated alphabet, a series of 
twenty-four little pictures, each accompanied 
by a two or three-line jingle; a picture and a 
jingle for every letter of the alphabet — except 
J, which was treated as though I with another 
name, and V, which was regarded as identical 
with U. 

The alphabet had been taught by means of 
rhymes long before the days of the " New Eng- 
land Primer"; but these rhymes, generally sup- 
posed to be the work of the aggressively Protes- 
tant Harris, were unique in character in that 
they gave to the children who read them en- 
during lessons in morals and the Bible. It is 
a pity that the name of the artist has not come 
down to us along with that of the rhymester; 
for it would be hard to find anywhere pictures 
more expressive in proportion to their size. 
The apples in the tree which illustrated the 
jingle, since become a classic: 

" In Adam's Fall 
We sinned all," 

are " practicable " apples, so to say, and must 
often have tantalizingly made to water the 



26 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

young mouths agape at them. The tree which 
Zacchaeus climbed, the cock whose cry smote 
Peter's conscience, the ravens which fed EHjah, 
and the ark in which Noah went saiHng out into 
the flood were similarly realistic. Many chil- 
dren come through our public schools to-day 
without obtaining such vivid impressions of 
classic Bible episodes as these rhymes and their 
pictures afford; I'd like to see their vogue re- 
vived. 

But I would not wish to see again in circula- 
tion what was undoubtedly the " feature " of 
the primer in the mind of the militant Mr. 
Harris: that illustration depicting Mr. John 
Rogers burning at the stake, with his wife and 
ten children (ten, count them yourself) looking 
on. The nearest that Rogers' wife and ten 
children ever got to the stake and its cruelly 
curling flames was that they met the martyr 
" by the way as he went toward Smithfield." 
The cut in the " New England Primer " gives 
us history deeply colored by religious preju- 
dice. 

Another notable feature of the book was the 
" Dialogue between Christ, Youth and the 
Devil." It begins with the declaration on the 
part of Youth that : 

" Those days which God to me doth send 
In pleasure I'm resolved to spend." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 27 

This sentiment pleases the Devil, who gleefully 
promises : 

" If thou my counsel will embrace. 
And shun the ways of truth and grace. 
And learn to lie and curse and swear, 
And be as proud as any are; 
And with thy brothers will fall out, 
And sister with vile language flout; 
Yea, fight and scratch and also bite. 
Then in thee I will take delight." 

Pedagogy would not be responsible, in our 
time, for these violent and subversive sugges- 
tions. Nor would the words of Death, who 
soon appears to say: 

" Youth, I am come to fetch thy breath 
And carry thee to th' shades of death. 
No pity on thee can I show. 
Thou hast thy God offended so. 
Thy soul and body I'll divide. 
Thy body in the grave I'll hide. 
And thy dear soul in hell must lie 
With devils to eternity," 

carry now the terror that they held for shudder- 
ing youth in an age when the tortures of the 
damned in hell were vividly set forth every 
Sunday at the meeting-house. 

How perfectly the Church and the School 
worked together in those early days! The 
*' backbone " of the primer was the " West- 



28 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

minster Assembly's Shorter Catechism " — that 
reHgious office which Cotton Mather called a 
*' Httle watering pot " to shed good lessons; 
and writing-masters were urged by the ministry 
to set sentences from this catechism to be 
copied by their pupils.^ Drill in the catechism 
was given in the schools no less regularly than 
drill in spelling; and such drill was regarded as 
a means second to none for developing those 
children whom Jonathan Edwards had pleas- 
antly called " young vipers and infinitely more 
hateful than vipers to God " into sober and 
religious men and women. The Puritan child 
was not allowed to forget at school, any less 
than at church and in the home, that to be an 
earnest and aggressive Christian was his chief 
duty in life. A primer published at Brookfield 
as late as 1828 devoted nearly two pages to 
maxims which declared that " Death to a Chris- 
tian is putting off rags for robes " and appro- 
priately added the following cheerful stanza on 

1 It was made perfectly explicit by the General Court that the 
schoolmaster was to be made thus useful. In the records for May 
3, 1654, we read: 

" Forasmuch as it greatly concerns the welfare of this country 
that the youth thereof be educated, not only in good literature but 
sound doctrine, this Coiu-t doth, therefore, commend it to the 
serious consideration and special care of the officers of the college 
and the selectmen of several towns, not to admit or suffer any such 
to be continued in the office or place of teaching, educating, or in- 
structing of youth or children in the college or schools, that have 
manifested themselves unsound in the faith, or scandalous in their 
lives, and not giving due satisfaction according to the rules of 
Christ." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 29 

The Uncertainty of Life 

*' In the burying place may see 
Graves shorter there than I; 
From Death's arrest no age is free. 

Young children, too, may die. 
My God, may such an awful sight 

Awakening be to me. 
O! that by early grace I might 

For death prepared be." 

A much more pleasing allusion to death is 
that first found in the 1737 edition of the " New 
England Primer " in a prayer which has become 
hallowed to every one of us by our childish as- 
sociations with it: 

" Now I lay me down to sleep 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep 
If I should die before I wake 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

The author of this prayer is unknown, but 
his work — or is it her work? — having once 
been printed, was included in almost every 
subsequent edition of the " Primer " and has 
become a part of the spiritual heritage of every 
New England child. This same thing might 
have been said of the book as a whole in the 
days of our great-grandparents; a perfect de- 
scription of the " New England Primer " itself 
was for them contained in the apocryphal poem 



30 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

of the martyred John Rogers, " unto his chil- 
dren: " 

*' I leave you here a little book 
For you to look upon 
That you may see your father's face 
When I am dead and gone." 

As we turn the crumbling pages and read the 
queer old verses of the " New England Primer ", 
we see in imagination the hulking forms of the 
boys who graduated from its teachings to be- 
come New England's fathers, and descry, too, 
the winsome faces of those gentle maidens who 
became their wives and helpmeets. All honor 
to this book! 

In modern reminiscences about the " little 
red schoolhouse " the " jography " book plays 
a large part. But in Colonial days this branch 
of knowledge was regarded rather as " a diver- 
sion for a winter's evening " than as a necessary 
part of the school curriculum. Not until after 
the Revolution was the topic taken up in the 
elementary schools. Geography was first made 
a condition of entering Harvard in 1815, and 
1825 is the earliest date that one finds it gener- 
ally named among the required studies in the 
public schools. The first American school 
geography was published in 1784. Its author 
was Reverend Jedediah Morse, father of the 
inventor of the electric telegraph, who is de- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 31 

scribed on the title-pages of most editions of his 
books as " D.D. . . . Minister of the Congrega- 
tion in Charlestown, Massachusetts.'* From 
one of these books, " Geography Made Easy", 
we get some authentic information about schools 
in Boston in 1800. There were seven of them, 
we learn, " supported wholly at the public ex- 
pense, and in them the children of every class 
of citizens freely associate." Three of these 
schools were " English grammar schools " in 
which " the children of both sexes from 7 to 
14 years of age are instructed in spelling, ac- 
centing and reading the English language with 
propriety; also in English grammar and com- 
position, together with the rudiments of geog- 
raphy." In three other schools *' the same 
children are taught writing and arithmetic. 
The schools are attended alternately, and each 
of them is furnished with an Usher or assis- 
tant. The masters of these schools have each 
a salary of 666 2-3 dollars per annum pay- 
able quarterly." Mention is also made thus 
authentically of the " Latin grammar school 
to which none are admitted till ten years of 
age." 

The large and prosperous town of Boston, it 
will thus be seen, had progressed considerably 
in an educational way since the days of Phile- 
mon Parmont. But in the country districts of 
New England, the schools were scarcely less 



32 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

primitive at the end of the eighteenth century ^ 
than they had been at the beginning of the 
seventeenth. The school committee of Woburn, 
to be sure, had by this time so far advanced 
beyond the hmitations of the " New England 
Primer " as to be recommending for use Perry's 
" Spelling Book and Grammar ", Webster's 
"Institutes", "The Children's Friend", "La- 
dies' Accidence ", Morse's " Geography ", Chee- 
ver's " Accidence ", or " The Philadelphia Latin 
Grammar ", Corderius' " Colloquies ", Aesop's 
" Fables ", Eutropius, CastaHo's " Latin Testa- 
ment ", Virgil, Tully, the Greek Grammar and 
Testament, and " Jenkin's Art of writing, with 
due attention to Paper, Pens and Ink." But 
this degree of development was rather unusual 
and may be credited to the town's proximity to 
Boston. In small seaport places thick, rough 
slates and large, heavy pencils were then just 
coming into use, and even these were still un- 
known in the hill-districts. 

For that Connecticut town which Jane De 
Forest Shelton has made the background of her 
fascinating book, " Salt-Box House ", Dil worth's 
" Spelling-book ", printed in Glasgow, still served 
as the foundation-stone of instruction; and 



^ Samuel Appleton, well remembered in Boston as a merchant 
and philanthropist, taught school, in 1786, for his board, lodging, 
washing, and sixty-seven cents per week. Mrs. Earle, in giving this 
data, comments that such pay was then deemed " Uberal and 
ample." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 33 

until Noah Webster published his book of " Se- 
lections " in 1789, the Bible was the only read- 
ing-book — save the " New England Primer." 
" But few of the children owned books, black- 
boards had not been thought of, and the teacher 
went from one to another and ' set sums ' for 
them to puzzle over — to ' find the decimal of 
17s, 9d. 2 far. ! ' There were recitations in con- 
cert of the multiplication table, and those of 
weights and measures — including 12 sacks 
make one load and 10 cowhides make one 
dicker. 

" Exercises in rhyme were also given such as: 

' A gentleman a chaise did buy, 
A horse and harness too; 
They cost the sum of three score pounds. 
Upon my word 'tis true. 
The harness came to half the horse, 
The horse twice of the chaise, 
And if you find the price of them, 
Take them and go your ways.' " 

The country school-teacher needed to be 
something of a craftsman as well as a scholar, 
for he was constantly being called upon to 
make with his penknife pens from the conve- 
nient goose-quill. " ' Please mend my pen ' was 
a request he heard continually, as his charges 
stood at the long desk nailed to the side of the 
wall, toiling from pothooks to the elaborate 
capitals in which they delighted. Ink was made 



34 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

from ink-powders or sticks dissolved in vinegar, 
or more primitively from soot and vinegar. 
The ink-bottles were of leather, and the writing- 
books of large sheets of paper stitched to- 
gether." ^ 

In the summer term of this hill-town Con- 
necticut school a woman was occasionally em- 
ployed as teacher, and then small boys as well 
as the girls were taught to make patchwork, 
to knit, and to work samplers. Never am I so 
glad that I was born in the late nineteenth, in- 
stead of the early eighteenth century, as when I 
contemplate this Colonial accomplishment! For 
not to be able to show a carefully designed and 
skilfully wrought sampler would have been an 
unspeakable disgrace in a schoolgirl of that 
period. By this means the young daughter of 
the house was taught to embroider the letters 
needed to mark her household linen, and from 
such humble beginnings was led gently on until 
she could reproduce gorgeous flowers, odd- 
shaped buildings, and complicated pastoral 
scenes in which perched birds as large as ele- 
phants and roses larger than either. 

To the research worker there is great value 
in many of these samplers, for the reason that 
they were usually inscribed with the name and 
date of the maker, as well as, sometimes, with 
the place of her birth. Often, too, there was a 

1 " The Salt-Box House" : Baker & Taylor." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 35 

prim little message that marvelously re-creates 
for us the personality of this long-ago child. 
Thus: 

" Lora Standish is my Name 
Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy Will 
Also fill my hands with such convenient skill 
As will conduce to Virtue void of Shame, 
And I will give the Glory to Thy Name." 

Knitting was another housewifely branch 
commonly taught in the schools. Initials were 
often knit into mittens and stockings, and one 
young miss of Shelburne, New Hampshire, 
could and did knit the alphabet and a verse of 
poetry into a single pair of mittens! We find 
the head of a dame school at Newport adver- 
tising that she will teach " Sewing, Marking, 
Queen Stitch and Knitting ", while a Boston 
shopkeeper offers to take children and young 
ladies to board, holding out as an inducement 
that he will teach them " Dresden and Em- 
broidery on gauze. Tent Stitch and all sorts of 
Coloured Work." Mr. Brownell, the Boston 
schoolmaster in 1716, taught " Young Gentle 
Women and Children all sorts of Fine Works 
as Feather Works, Filagree, and Painting on 
Glass, Embroidering a new Way, Turkey-work 
for Handkerchiefs two new ways, fine new 
Fashion purses, flourishing and plain Work." 

In the larger towns, school kept open almost 



36 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

continuously, and because of this, precocious 
lads were often ready for college at what seems 
to us an absurdly early age. Frequently a 
youngster entered the Boston Latin School at 
six and a half years — and sometimes he could 
already read Greek a little, having been taught 
this tongue by a doting parent. John Trum- 
bull, who attended one of the best schools of 
the period, — in the little town of Lebanon, 
Connecticut, — made such good progress under 
that excellent schoolmaster, Nathan Tisdale, 
that he was ready to be admitted to college at 
the age of twelve. Trumbull's biography gives 
us some particularly interesting glimpses of 
education in Connecticut during the score of 
years preceding the Revolution. 

For a picture of life in a Connecticut school 
at the beginning of the last century, one can- 
not do better than turn to the autobiography 
of Samuel G. Goodrich, or " Peter Parley " as 
he called himself on the title-pages of his numer- 
ous books. Goodrich was born in 1793 in the 
little farming town of Ridgefield, Connecticut, 
and he attended there a district school whose 
immediate surroundings were: 

" — bleak and desolate. Loose, squat stone 
walls, with innumerable breaches, inclosed the 
adjacent fields. A few tufts of elder, with here 
and there a patch of briers and pokeweed, flour- 
ished in the gravelly soil. Not a tree, however. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 37 

remained, save an aged chestnut. This cer- 
tainly had not been spared for shade or orna- 
ment, but probably because it would have cost 
too much labor to cut it down; for it was of 
ample girth. 

" The schoolhouse chimney was of stone, 
and the fireplace was six feet wide and four 
deep. The flue was so ample and so perpendicu- 
lar that the rain, sleet and snow fell directly to 
the hearth. In winter the battle for life with 
green sizzling fuel, which was brought in lengths 
and cut up by the scholars, was a stern one. 
Not unfrequently the wood, gushing with sap 
as it was, chanced to let the fire go out, and as 
there was no living without fire, the school was 
dismissed, whereat all the scholars rejoiced. 

" I was about six years old when I first went 
to school. My teacher was ' Aunt Delight,' a 
maiden lady of fifty, short and bent, of sallow 
complexion and solemn aspect. We were all 
seated upon benches made of slabs — boards 
having the exterior or rounded part of the log 
on one side. . . . The children were called up 
one by one by Aunt Delight, who sat on a low 
chair and required each, as a preliminary, ' to 
make his manners,' which consisted of a small 
sudden nod. She then placed the spelling-book 
before the pupil, and with a penknife pointed, 
one by one, to the letters of the Alphabet, say- 
ing ' What's that? ' 



38 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

*' I believe I achieved the alphabet that 
summer. Two years later I went to the winter 
school at the same place kept by Lewis 01m- 
stead — a man who made a business of plough- 
ing, mowing, carting manure, etc., in the sum- 
mer, and of teaching school in winter. He was a 
celebrity in ciphering, and Squire Seymour de- 
clared he was the greatest ' arithmeticker ' in 
Fairfield County. There was not a grammar, a 
geography or a history of any kind in the 
school. Reading, writing and arithmetic were 
the only things taught, and these very indiffer- 
ently — not wholly from the stupidity of the 
teacher, but because he had forty scholars, and 
the custom of the age required no more than he 
performed." 

While we are on the subject of the pupils and 
schoolmasters in Connecticut, let us renew our 
acquaintance with Ichabod Crane, that Con- 
necticut schoolmaster who *' tarried ", as he ex- 
pressed it, — or as Irving expressed it for him, 
— in Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of in- 
structing the children of the vicinity. 

*' His school-house was a low building of one 
large room, rudely constructed of logs; the 
windows partly glazed and partly patched with 
leaves of copy-books. It was most ingeniously 
secured at vacant hours, by a withe twisted in 
the handle of the door and stakes set against 
the window-shutters; so that though a thief 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 39 

might get in with perfect ease he would find 
some embarrassment in getting out . . . The 
school-house stood just at the foot of a woody 
hill, with a brook running close by, and a 
formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. 
From hence the low murmur of his pupils' 
voices, conning over their lessons, might be 
heard of a drowsy summer's day, like the hum 
of a bee-hive; interrupted now and then by 
the authoritative voice of the master, in the 
tone of menace or command; or, perad venture, 
by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged 
some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of 
knowledge. Truth to say he was a conscien- 
tious man, that ever bore in mind the golden 
maxim * spare the rod and spoil the child.' 
Ichabod Crane's children certainly were not 
spoiled. 

" The revenue arising from his school was 
small and would have been scarcely sufficient 
to furnish him with daily bread; but to help 
out his maintenance, he was, according to 
country custom, boarded and lodged at the 
houses of the farmers whose children he in- 
structed. With these he lived successively a 
week at a time, thus going the rounds of the 
neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied 
up in a cotton handkerchief. That all this 
might not be too onerous on the purses of the 
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs 



40 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

of schooling a grievous burden, and school- 
masters as mere drones, he had various ways 
of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. 
He assisted the farmers occasionally in the 
lighter labors of their farms; helped to make 
hay; mended the fences; took the horses to 
water; drove the cows from pasture; and cut 
wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all 
the dominant dignity and absolute sway with 
which he lorded it in his little empire the school, 
and became wonderfully gentle and ingratia- 
ting. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers 
by petting the children, particularly the young- 
est; and like the lion bold which whilom so 
magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would 
sit with a child on his knee and rock a cradle 
with his foot for whole hours together. 

" In addition to his other vocations he was 
the singing-master of the neighborhood, and 
picked up many bright shillings by instructing 
the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter 
of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take 
his station in front of the church gallery, with 
a band of chosen singers, where in his own mind, 
he completely carried away the palm from the 
parson. . . . Thus by divers little makeshifts 
... the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably 
well enough, and was thought by all who under- 
stood nothing of the labor of head-work, to 
have a wonderful easy life of it." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 41 

Ichabod Crane had apparently chosen teach- 
ing for his hfe work, but in most villages where 
the schoolmaster " boarded round " the in- 
structors were young students helping them- 
selves through college and scrupulously saving 
their seventeen to twenty-five dollars a month 
toward the fees they must soon pay. Often 
they suffered much as they '* boarded." The 
following amusing paragraphs from what pur- 
ports to be a schoolmaster's diary written early 
in the last century give a fairly faithful picture 
of one week's 

BOARDING ROUND IN VERMONT 

'* Monday. Went to board at Mr. B's; had 
a baked gander for dinner; suppose from its 
size, the thickness of the skin and other vener- 
able appearances it must have been one of the 
first settlers of Vermont; made a slight im- 
pression on the patriarch's breast. Supper — 
cold gander and potatoes. Family consists of 
the man, good wife, daughter Peggy, four boys, 
Pompey the dog, and a brace of cats. Fire 
built in the square room about nine o'clock, 
and a pile of wood lay by the fireplace; saw 
Peggy scratch her fingers, and couldn't take 
the hint; felt squeamish about the stomach, 
and talked of going to bed; Peggy looked sullen, 
and put out the fire in the square room; went 



42 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

to bed and dreamed of having eaten a quantity 
of stone wall. 

" Tuesday. Cold gander for breakfast, swamp 
tea and nut cake — the latter some consolation. 
Dinner — the legs, etc., of the gander, done up 
warm — one nearly despatched. Supper — the 
other leg, etc., cold; went to bed as Peggy was 
carrying in the fire to the square room ; dreamed 
I was a mud turtle, and got on my back and 
couldn't get over again. 

" Wednesday. Cold gander for breakfast; 
complained of sickness and could eat nothing. 
Dinner — the wings, etc., of the gander warmed 
up; did my best to destroy them for fear they 
should be left for supper; did not succeed; 
dreaded supper all the afternoon. Supper — 
hot Johnny cake; felt greatly relieved; thought 
I had got clear of the gander and went to bed 
for a good night's rest; disappointed; very cool 
night and couldn't keep warm; got up and 
stopped the broken window with my coat and 
vest; no use; froze the tip of my nose and one 
ear before morning. 

"Thursday. Cold gander again; much dis- 
couraged to see the gander not half gone; went 
visiting for dinner and supper; slept abroad 
and had pleasant dreams. 

" Friday. Breakfast abroad. Dinner at Mr. 
B's; cold gander and potatoes — the latter 
very good; ate them, and went to school quite 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 43 

contented. Supper — cold gander and no po- 
tatoes; bread heavy and dry; had the head- 
ache and couldn't eat. Peggy much concerned, 
had a fire built in the square room and thought 
she and I had better sit there out of the noise; 
went to bed early; Peggy thought too much 
sleep bad for the headache. 

" Saturday. Cold gander and hot Johnny 
cake; did very well. Dinner — cold gander 
again; didn't keep school this afternoon; got 
weighed and found I had lost six pounds the 
last week; grew alarmed; had a talk with 
Mr. B. and concluded I had boarded out his 
share." 

Most of New England's great men " boarded 
round " as they made their way through college, 
and it is probably not too much to say that the 
experience was of great service to them, in that 
it helped them to develop breadth of sympathy, 
rugged health and — sometimes — a sense of 
humor. Their usual accommodation was a 
fireless bedroom, and, after the bracing walk to 
school, they were confronted with the problem 
of coaxing a cheerful fire out of wood which 
had no intention of burning. Often the morn- 
ing would be half gone before the room was 
suflSciently warm to admit of book-work of any 
kind; and during all this trying, thawing-out 
period, some kind of order had to be maintained 
among a group of young savages whose chief 



44 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

object in life it was to make their teacher's task 
a burden. Small wonder that the rod, the 
dunce-cap, and other means of discipline even 
more abhorrent were constantly in use. What 
such discipline could be in the case of a particu- 
larly brutal master we may imagine from the 
fact that in Sunderland, Massachusetts, a 
whipping-post was set firmly into the floor of a 
school erected in 1793, and offenders were com- 
monly tied there and whipped in the presence 
of their mates. Clifton Johnson, in his illumi- 
nating work on " Old-time Schools and School- 
books", adds that the walls of this particular 
schoolroom became badly marred, as time went 
on, with dents made by ferules hurled by the 
teacher at the heads of misbehaving pupils. 

Even in the private schools of Western Mas- 
sachusetts there appears to have been no sug- 
gestion of the primrose path about the road to 
learning. Deerfield Academy, which began its 
career in 1799, had a code of by-laws containing 
no less than thirty-six articles for the disciplin- 
ing of its pupils! Morning prayers were held 
at five o'clock or as soon as it was light enough 
to read, and there was a fine of four cents for 
being absent from them and of two cents for 
being late. For making an ink-blot or dropping 
tallow on a library book, six cents had to be 
paid to the school. Any encounter of the boy 
and girl students on the grounds or within the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 45 

walls of the Academy, except at meals or prayers, 
cost one dollar; absence from meeting on Sun- 
day, Fast Day, or Thanksgiving cost another 
dollar, and there were similarly prohibitive 
fines for visiting Saturday night or Sunday and 
for playing cards, backgammon, or checkers 
within the walls of the building. 

The very fact, however, that learning in these 
old days was so difficult, so painful, and so ex- 
pensive naturally made it the more highly 
prized. Those who had passed through the 
little red schoolhouse, the grammar school, and 
the Academy felt, quite properly, that, on the 
principle of the survival of the fittest, they were 
deserving of a good deal of credit. Seldom 
could it be said of them that they wore " their 
weight 

" of learning, lightly, like a flower." 

Happily, the college life served to restore such 
lads to the plane of mere human beings. Even 
Cotton Mather, as we shall see, was not quite 
so unconscionable a prig when he came out of 
Harvard as when he went in. 



46 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER II 



GOING TO COLLEGE 



THE spirit that founded the common 
schools of New England and, by 1649, 
made education compulsory throughout 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, established a 
university in Cambridge in 1636, when the colony 
of Massachusetts was scarcely seven years old, 
and in the year 1700 took the first steps towards 
founding Yale College in Connecticut. Brown 
in Rhode Island was begun in 1765, and five 
years later Dartmouth began its career amid 
the wilds of New Hampshire with a humble 
log house for its first college hall and Indians 
enrolled among its first students. Williams 
College was incorporated in the year 1785; 
Bowdoin came into existence in 1794; and in 
1800 the college at Middlebury, Vt.,^ was born. 
Thus, by the dawn of the nineteenth century, 
at least one institution of collegiate rank was 
provided for each New England State. How 
these early colleges differed each from the 

' The University of Vermont, chartered in 1791, has also had 
an interesting history. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 47 

other, and the hfe led by their several students 
is matter well worth our attention. 

In the initial volume of the Massachusetts 
Records we find, concerning New England's 
first college: 

" At a Court holden Sept. 8, 1636 and con- 
tinued by adjournment to the 28th of the 8th 
month, October, 1636, the Court agreed to 
give £400 towards a school or college: £200 to 
be paid next year and £200 when the work is 
finished, and the next Court to appoint where 
and what building." 

This is said to have been the first occasion 
in history when a community, through its 
representatives, voted a sum of money to es- 
tablish an institution of learning. Twelve of 
the principal magistrates and ministers of the 
colony, among them Governor Winthrop and 
Deputy-Governor Dudley, were apppointed at 
this same time to carry through the project. 
But except that they selected Newtowne, " a 
place very pleasant and accommodate ", to be 
the site of the college, these good men did 
little during the next two years to assure suc- 
cess to their undertaking. It was the bequest 
of the Reverend John Harvard, a graduate, as 
were many of the other leading men of the 
colony, of the old English university at Cam- 
bridge, which put the struggling institution 
on its feet. 



48 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Of this gentle and generous scholar, who 
died of consumption the year after he had set- 
tled on our bleak New England shores, very 
little, except his college history, is actually 
known even to-day, when a fine old house with 
which his early life is said to be associated^ 
shares, with Shakespeare's birthplace and the 
home of Marie Corelli, the devout attention 
of American pilgrims to Stratford-on-Avon. 
That he was admitted a townsman in Charles- 
town, August 6, 1637; that he, with Anna, 
his wife, was received into the communion of 
the church over which Reverend Mr. Symmes 
presided and to which he had been appointed 
temporary assistant; that he served on a few 
town committees, and that he died in Charles- 
town, September 14, 1638, leaving haK his es- 
tate and his whole library to the new college — 
this is the sum of John Harvard's biography. 
Where he was buried no man knows with cer- 
tainty, though it is believed he found his last 
resting-place at the foot of the Town Hill in 
Charlestown; the spot on which the alumni 
of the college erected a monument to him Sep- 
tember 26, 1828, was arbitrarily chosen be- 
cause it then commanded a view of the site of 
the college. 

Books often endure for many centuries, and 

1 See article by Henry F. Waters, '55 in The Harvard Graduates' 
Magazine for June, 1907. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 49 

out of John Harvard's library of three hundred 
and twenty volumes there should have been 
many a tome which would have tangibly con- 
nected this young graduate of Emmanuel Col- 
lege with the college in the newer Cambridge, 
which in March, 1639, voted to adopt his name 
— having already given its own to the town 
in which it had settled. Yet because of a de- 
structive fire in 1764, only one book of Harvard's 
goodly collection survives to-day. This is 
Downame's " Christian Warfare Against the 
Devil, World, and Flesh." Harvard's money, 
however, seven hundred and seventy-nine 
pounds, seventeen shillings and twopence, was 
of enormous importance in building up the 
struggling institution, not only because eight 
hundred pounds represented as much as thirty 
thousand dollars would now, but also because 
this unexpected and munificent bequest stimu- 
lated the colonists generally into giving what 
they could. Very touching is it to read of simple 
folk who gave a flock of sheep, cotton cloth 
worth nine shillings, a pewter flagon worth ten 
shillings, a fruit dish, a sugar spoon, one " great 
salt " and one small " trencher-salt " towards 
the upbuilding of this institution to " advance 
learning and perpetuate it to posterity." 

In the instrument first chosen to accomplish 
this high end, the Reverend Nathaniel Eaton, 
Harvard's first executive, the General Court 



50 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

was very unfortunate, Eaton and his wife turn- 
ing out to be rogues and cheats of the com- 
monest garden variety. Happily, the people 
at large were not discouraged by the fact that 
a mistake had been made. They continued to 
bestow generous gifts on the institution, and in 
1640 the General Court granted to the college 
the revenue of the ferry between Charlestown 
and Boston, which came to about sixty pounds 
a year. And then, in August, 1640, the Reverend 
Henry Dunster, who had recently arrived from 
England, was elected president under that title. 
From Dunster, its first president, Harvard 
took the tone which has made it famous. Wen- 
dell Phillips, in his Phi Beta Kappa address of 
1881, pointed out that "the generation that 
knew Vane gave to our Alma Mater for a seal 
the simple pledge, Veritas." Dunster was of 
the generation that knew Vane. And he sacri- 
ficed his all for Truth as he saw it. 

Very appealing is the story of this simple, 
straightforward man, who, after giving fourteen 
years of unselfish and devoted service to the 
college, sent himself into exile because over- 
taken with doubts as to the validity of infant 
baptism. Dunster had come from Lancashire, 
at the age of thirty-six, to escape persecution 
for non-conformity. For some time he seemed 
happy in the New World and devoted all the 
strength that was in him to the upbuilding of 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 51 

the college under his charge, giving it, out of 
his very limited resources, one hundred acres 
of land and contributing largely towards build- 
ing " a house for the president." He also 
secured a number of appropriations and im- 
provements from the General Court; and this 
in spite of the fact that his salary diminished 
steadily from sixty pounds a year to half that 
sum. He even expressed himself as willing, 
noble soul that he was, " to descend to the low- 
est step, if there can be nothing comfortably al- 
lowed." All this self-sacrificing service counted 
for nothing, however, when he " fell into 
the briers of Antipsedobaptism ", as Cotton 
Mather termed it. The General Court then 
gave only a cold ear to the " Considerations " 
which he submitted to them in October, 1634, 
in the hope that he might be permitted to re- 
main a little longer in " the president's house ", 
which he had helped to build. I am never quite 
so certain that the Puritans were a hard-hearted 
lot as when I recall the meagreness of their re- 
sponse to these pathetic pleadings: 

*' 1. The time of the year is unseasonable, 
being now very near the shortest day and the 
depth of winter. 

*' 2. The place unto which I go is unknown 
to me and my family, and the ways and means 
of subsistence to one of my talents and parts, 
or for the containing or conserving of my goods. 



52 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

or disposing of my cattle, accustomed to my 
place of residence. 

" 3. The place from which I go hath fire, 
fuel and all provisions for man and beast laid 
in for the winter. To remove some things will 
be to destroy them; to remove others, as books 
and household goods, to damage them greatly. 
The house I have builded, upon very damageful 
conditions to myself, out of love for the college, 
taking country pay in lieu of bills of exchange 
on England, or the house would not have been 
built. . . . 

"4. The persons, all besides myseK, are 
women and children, on whom little help, now 
their minds lie under the actual stroke of afflic- 
tion and grief. My wife is sick and my young- 
est child extremely so and hath been for months, 
so that we dare not carry him out of doors, 
yet much worse now than before." 

None the less, March, which is only slightly 
more advantageous as a moving-time than 
November, was the limit of the time the Court 
would allow him to stay in the house he had 
builded, and in that month of sharp winds and 
icy chill the deposed president went to take 
charge of a church in Scituate. Four years 
later he died in poverty. 

It was under Dunster that Harvard, in 1642, 
graduated its first class, consisting of nine 
members, most of whom became ministers. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 53 

The ministry was, for many years, indeed, the 
profession to which the college chiefly dedicated 
its graduates. In these early days of the in- 
stitution, there were no lay-instructors to turn 
the students' attention to any other profession, 
the president, who was always a minister, being 
assisted only by two or three graduate students 
(who were called Sir) in doing the necessary 
teaching. For though the entrance require- 
ments sound very formidable in the matter of 
Latin and Greek, the college course was in 
many ways very elementary, and the students 
were all mere lads — almost children. 

When Paul Dudley was ready to enter Har- 
vard, at the age of eleven (in 1686), his father 
addressed the following quaint note of intro- 
duction to the president: 

" I have humbly to offer you a little, sober, 
and well-disposed son, who, tho' very young, 
if he may have the favour of admittance, I hope 
his learning may be tollerable: and for him I 
will promise that by your care and my care, 
his own Industry and the blessing of God, this 
mother the University shall not be ashamed 
to allow him the place of a son — Appoint a 
time when he may be examined." 

The president who examined little Paul Dud- 
ley was Increase Mather, father of Cotton 
Mather, under whose administration much that 
is of interest to Harvard and to social life in old 



54 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

New England transpired. Chauncey, Hoar, and 
Oakes were successively presidents of Harvard 
between Dunster's departure and the accession 
of Mather. 

Samuel Sewall entered college during the in- 
cumbency of Chauncey. It has always seemed 
to me a very great pity that Sewall, who 
afterwards wrote so much and so vividly, 
passed with exceeding lightness over his col- 
lege days. " I was admitted," he records, " by 
the very learned and pious Mr. Charles Chaun- 
cey, who gave me my first degree in the year 
1671. There were no Masters in that year. 
These Bachelours were the last Mr. Chauncey 
gave a degree to, for he died the February fol- 
lowing. . . In 1674 I took my 2d Degree and 
Mrs. Hannah Hull was invited by the Dr. 
Hoar and his Lady to be with them a while at 
Cambridge. She saw me when I took my De- 
gree and set her affection on me, though I knew 
nothing of it till after our Marriage; which 
was February 28th, 1675-6." 

Since Sewall was nearly seventy when he 
set down these meagre facts in a letter to his 
son, it is not to be wondered at that the events 
of his college days had grown dim in his mem- 
ory. Yet his contemporary account of events 
while a Resident Fellow, are scarcely more 
illuminating. We would gladly have taken it 
for granted that he had his hair cut if only he 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 55 

had described for us the way in which the boys 
under his charge hved and played and studied! 
The embryo Justice had a keen eye even thus 
early, however, for the administering of punish- 
ments. He dwells with unction on the disci- 
plining of Thomas Sargeant who, " convicted of 
speaking blasphemous words concerning the 
H. G." was condemned 

'* 1. To be publickly whipped before all the 
Scholars. 

*' 2. That he should be suspended as to 
taking his degree of Bachelour. 

*' 3. Sit alone by himself in the Hall un- 
covered at meals, during the pleasure of the 
President and Fellows, and be in all things 
obedient, doing what exercise was appointed 
him by the President, or else be finally expelled 
the Colledge. 

" The first was presently put in Execution 
in the Library before the Scholars. He kneeled 
down and the instrument, Goodman Hely, at- 
tended the President's word as to the per- 
formance of his part in the work. Prayer was 
had before and after by the President, July 1, 
1674." 

The most vivid picture that I have been 
able to find of the college at this period is un- 
fortunately a prejudiced one. Visiting Jesuits 
could scarcely be expected to see through rose- 
colored glasses a college whose main purpose 



56 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

they knew to be the training of Puritans for the 
priesthood. So these " impressions " of Jasper 
Dankers and Peter Sluyter must be taken with 
several grains of salt. The time of their visit 
was June, 1680, and on entering the College 
building they discovered *' eight or ten young 
fellows sitting about smoking tobacco, with 
the smoke of which the room was so full that 
you could hardly see; and the whole house 
smelt so strong of it that when I was going up- 
stairs I said, this is certainly a tavern. . . . They 
could hardly speak a word of Latin so that my 
comrade could not converse with them. They 
took us to the library where there was nothing 
particular. We looked over it a little." 

Inasmuch as there had long been a stringent 
rule against the use of tobacco by undergrad- 
uates, " unless permitted by the president, 
with the consent of their parents or guardians, 
and on good reason first given by a physician, 
and then in a sober and private manner ", these 
visitors must have mistaken a group of Fellows 
for students of the college. Fellows could and 
did both smoke and drink. Samuel Sewall 
very frankly writes down in his diary that on 
April 15, 1674, he spent fourpence for beer, 
threepence for wine and threepence more for 
*' Tobacco Pipes." 

In 1685 the Reverend Increase Mather be- 
came president of the college, taking the place 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 67 

with the distinct understanding that he should 
not be expected to reside at Cambridge and 
would be permitted to continue his work as 
pastor of the Second Church in Boston. Mather 
never particularly enjoyed his duties at Har- 
vard, and there was constant bickering during 
his tenure of office because he could not very 
well expound the Old and New Testaments to 
the students twice daily while living in Boston. 
In 1698, when the liberal salary for those times 
of two hundred pounds annually was voted to 
him as president, a committee of which Samuel 
Sewall was a member informed him in no mis- 
takable manner that he must now either move 
to Cambridge or resign; but he still refused to 
do either. Not until his salary had been pushed 
up another twenty pounds did he take up his 
residence across the river. And, in a few months, 
he was back again in Boston, telling Governor 
Stoughton that he did not care to waste him- 
self in preaching to " forty or fifty children, 
few of them capable of edification by such ex- 
ercises " and alleging, also, that living in Cam- 
bridge did not suit his health. 

The fact was that Boston, with its political 
activities and theological controversies, was 
dearer to Mather than the education of youth 
could ever be, and when he found that he must 
either reside or resign, he reluctantly took the 
latter course. Mr. Samuel Willard, who prom- 



58 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

ised to stay at the college two days and nights 
a week, was, on September 6, 1701, appointed 
in his stead by the General Court Council, of 
which Sewall was a member. 

Sewall was held accountable for this vote 
by the Mathers and was made to suffer se- 
verely for his sin, Cotton Mather telling him 
in public that he had treated his father " worse 
than a neger." When Cotton Mather himself 
wanted the appointment, after the death of 
Willard in 1707, Sewall, as will be readily un- 
derstood, was not at all inclined to work for 
him. Instead he used his influence that John 
Leverett should get the place. 

Leverett had been the right-hand man of 
Governor Joseph Dudley, and it was a very 
happy moment for Dudley, as well as for Sewall, 
when his friend was inaugurated. " The 
gov'r ", Sewall writes, " prepared a Latin speech 
for instalment of the president. Then took 
the president by the hand and led him down 
into the hall. . . . The gov'r sat with his back 
against a noble fire. . . . Then the gov'r read 
his speech and moved the books in token of 
their delivery. Then president made a short 
Latin speech, importing the difficulties dis- 
couraging and yet he did accept: Clos'd with 
the hymn to the Trinity. Had a very good 
dinner upon 3 or 4 tables. ... Got home very 
well. Laud Deo." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 59 

John Leverett was a layman and a man of 
liberal views. Under his administration. Har- 
vard evolved from a training school for parsons 
to a college where a liberal education could be 
obtained. The number of tutors was increased 
to accommodate the growing body of under- 
graduates and in 1720 " a fair and goodly house 
of brick," Massachusetts Hall, the earliest of 
the present college buildings, was erected. It 
was during Leverett's administration that the 
first catalogue of books in the library was 
printed; the list shows thirty -five hundred 
volumes, a very large proportion of which were 
theological works. Bacon, Chaucer, Shakes- 
peare, and Milton are in this catalogue; but 
not Dryden, Addison, Pope, Swift, and a num- 
ber of other writers now regarded as classics, 
whom we might expect to find there. 

Upon the death of Leverett in 1724, the 
Reverend Benjamin Wadsworth came to be 
president. He served for thirteen years, a 
period to be noted chiefly for the reaction that 
then took place from the over-strict Puritanism 
of earlier times. This reaction went so far, 
indeed, that the college attempted to stem it 
by making the following rules: 

" All the scholars shall, at sunset in the eve- 
ning preceding the Lord's Day, retire to their 
chambers and not unnecessarily leave them; 
and all disorders on said evening shall be 



60 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

punished as violations of the Sabbath are. . . . 
And whosoever shall profane said day — the 
Sabbath — by unnecessary business or visit- 
ing, walking on the Common or in the streets 
or fields in the town of Cambridge, or by any 
sort of diversion before sunset, or that in the 
evening of the Lord's Day shall behave himself 
disorderly, or any way unbecoming the season, 
shall be fined not exceeding ten shillings. 

" That the scholars may furnish themselves 
with useful learning, they shall keep in their 
respective chambers and diligently follow their 
studies; except half an hour at breakfast; at 
dinner from twelve to two; and after evening 
prayers till nine of the clock. To that end the 
Tutors shall frequently visit their chambers 
after nine o'clock in the evening and at other 
studying times, to quicken them to their busi- 
ness." 

These rules would seem to ensure the strictest 
propriety of behavior on the part of the stu- 
dents, but from George Whitefi eld's declara- 
tion that the young men at Harvard were as 
dissipated as those at Oxford, we must conclude 
that they did not so work out. During the 
presidency of Reverend Edward Holyoke of 
Marblehead, who was elected in 1737 to suc- 
ceed Wadsworth, and who served the college 
for more than thirty years, two members of 
the government had to be dismissed for in- 




a 

O CO 



a 

o £ 

o 

H 

<; 

a 
Pi 

Ph 
3i 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 61 

temperance and, to cope with the constantly 
growing laxity of conduct, an elaborate system 
of fines was inaugurated. A few of these col- 
lege laws with the fines attached are worth 
quoting: " Neglecting to repeat the sermon, 
9d; entertaining persons of ill character, not 
exceeding Is 6d; profane cursing, not exceeding 
2s 6d; graduates playing cards, not exceeding 
5s; undergraduates playing cards, not exceed- 
ing Is 6d; lying, not exceeding Is 6d; opening 
door by pick-locks, not exceeding 5s; drunken- 
ness, not exceeding Is 6d; refusing to give evi- 
dence, 3s; sending freshmen in studying time, 
9d." 

This last fine is of particular interest be- 
cause it shows that the government of Har- 
vard recognized as legitimate, outside of " study- 
ing time ", the " Ancient Custom " which 
made " fags " of the freshmen. A freshman 
might not keep his hat on in the presence 
of a senior, was obliged to furnish '* batts, 
balls and footballs, for the use of the other stu- 
dents '*, could not refuse to do any errand upon 
which it pleased the whim of a senior to send 
him, and was strictly enjoined to open his door 
immediately, upon hearing a knock, without 
first inquiring who was there. Arthur Stanwood 
Pier, who has written of Harvard and its his- 
tory,^ tells us that the class of 1798 was the first 

^ " The Story of Harvard: " Boston, Little, Brown, and Company. 



62 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

freshman class to be emancipated from this 
condition of servitude and that Judge Story 
helped to bring this reform about by making 
a friend of the freshman who had been his 
fag. 

Another curious custom which prevailed at 
the college in the early days was that of rank- 
ing the students according to the social po- 
sition of their parents. One form of punish- 
ment was to " degrade " a student by putting 
him down several places on his class list. To 
be " degraded " was quite a blow, for the reason 
that the higher part of the class commonly had 
the best chambers in the college assigned to 
them and also had the right to help themselves 
first at table in commons. Inasmuch as the 
food was none too good at best, " first pick- 
ings " were probably a very real asset. In 1746 
" breakfast was two sizings of bread and a cue 
of beer while evening Commons were a Pye." 
About 1760 most of the students breakfasted 
at the houses where they lodged, and " for 
dinner had of rather ordinary quality, a suflS- 
ciency of meat of some kind, either baked or 
boiled; and at supper we had either a pint of 
milk and half a biscuit, or a meat pye or some 
other kind. We were allowed at dinner a cue 
of beer, which was a half-pint, and a sizing of 
bread — ... sufficient for one dinner." Each 
student had his own knife and fork, which he 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 63 

carried to table with him and cleansed after- 
ward by wiping on the table-cloth. 

The price of board at the commons in the 
period of which we are now speaking was be- 
tween seven and eight shillings a week. " The 
Buttery," to which there is frequent allusion 
in the old records, was an important adjunct 
of the commons, for there, " at a moderate 
advance on the cost, might be had wines, 
liquors, groceries, stationery and in general 
such articles as it was proper and necessary for 
them to have occasionally." In the light of the 
restricted table of these early days, it is easy 
to see why " The Buttery " should have pros- 
pered greatly, and why a literary club, which 
was founded in 1795, should have regaled mem- 
bers at its Saturday evening sessions with 
liberal helpings of hasty pudding and molasses. 

Life at Harvard was still an austerely " sim- 
ple life." Professor Sidney Willard, of the class 
of 1798, tells us that " the students who boarded 
in Commons were obliged to go to the kitchen 
door with their bowls or pitchers for their sup- 
pers, where they received their modicum of 
milk or chocolate in their vessel, held in one 
hand, and their piece of bread in the other and 
repaired to their rooms to take their solitary 
repast." 

Nor had Harvard changed very much by 
the second decade of the nineteenth century. 



64 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

when its " plant " consisted of a group of six 
buildings: Harvard Hall, which contained the 
college library of fifteen thousand volumes; 
Holden Chapel; and the four dormitories, — 
Massachusetts, Ilollis, Stoughton, and Hol- 
worthy. The last-named hall was built in 1812 
from funds raised by a lottery. In 1814 Uni- 
versity Hall was completed, with four dining 
halls for college commons on the ground floor, 
two kitchens beneath, six lecture rooms on the 
second floor, and a chapel above. The faculty 
at this time consisted of thirteen professors, 
including those of medicine and divinity; four 
tutors, of whom Edward Everett was one; 
one instructor in French, and another in rhetoric 
and oratory. 

When the class of 1817 entered the college, 
there were thirteen resident graduates as well 
as three hundred and one undergraduates to 
be taught by this staff. Eighty-six students 
were in this freshman class, — among them 
George Bancroft, Caleb Cushing, Samuel A. 
Eliot, George B. Emerson, Samuel J. May, and 
Stephen Salisbury. Through the home letters 
of young Salisbury, which are now in the pos- 
session of the American Antiquarian Society, 
one may share intimately in a typical Harvard 
career of this period. 

Salisbury had prepared for college at Leices- 
ter Academy, near Worcester, Massachusetts, 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 65 

and entered college in 1813, when only fifteen 
years old. At first he is held strictly to ac- 
count for every penny he spends, not because 
his people were either poor or parsimonious, 
but because he was a mere boy. When it came 
to the time of his Commencement dinner, as 
he had arrived nearly at man's estate, he was 
permitted to spend like a man and a gentleman. 
During his freshman year, however, he had to 
account to his father for as small a matter as 
six cents expended on a football, while his 
mother directs him to skip rope in his room, 
if he feels the need of exercise in stormy weather! 
Young Salisbury's Commencement spread 
was held at " Mr Hearsey's in Cambridge." 
The agreement and bills for this occasion have 
been preserved and are interesting enough to 
be quoted in full, for the reason that they show 
vividly how such a dinner was conducted in 
1817 by well-to-do people whose son was being 
graduated from Harvard. 

AGREEMENT WITH JONATHAN HEARSEY 

FOR AN ENTERTAINMENT AT CAMBRIDGE ON 

COMMENCEMENT DAY 

Aug. 27, 1817 

Mr. Hearsey agrees to provide dinner for 100 
persons at $1.50, — that is the course of meats & 
that of puddings tarts &c, — to be abundant 
in quantity & to consist of all the variety, that can 



66 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

be obtained, of choicest dishes, — Every thing to 
be of the best quahty of its kind. 

Mr. Hearsey will provide likewise the cakes of 
all sorts & all other confectionary & all other articles 
of whatever description that are needed to make 
an elegant & tasteful & good dinner in all respects. 
He will also provide fruit of every variety & in 
abundance. He will provide especially Oranges & 
Ice Creams. For all of which he is to be paid what- 
ever they may cost, he taking all due pains to get 
them at the lowest prices for the best articles of 
each kind — & engages to procure the very best 
articles and no others. 

He will provide a tent, convenient & commodious 
for dinner party, for which he is to be paid in ad- 
dition. 

He will provide Waiters, Cooks, Glass & China 
Ware of all sorts & in abundance for a genteel dinner 
& all furniture of every sort & kind at his own cost 
& expence & risk without any addition to the above 
charge of $1.30 each. 

Mr. Salisbury to provide his own liquors, except 
Bottled Cider which is to be provided by Mr. Hear- 
sey as a part of the two first courses. Mr. Hearsey 
is to take charge of the liquors & to return whatever 
may remain after the entertainment is finished. 

Mr. Salisbury's company is to have the use ex- 
clusively of at least four rooms in Mr. Hearsey's 
house for drawing rooms. 

Mr. Hearsey engages that there shall be nothing 
wanting to make the dinner elegant & acceptable in 
all respects, whether expressed or not in this paper. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 



67 



The excellent Hearsey received $228.47 for 
fulfilling acceptably the conditions of agree- 
ment as here laid down. In addition there was 
a bill of ninety-seven dollars for cake and ice- 
cream, and another of seventy -nine dollars for 
liquors. Let us follow some of the items in the 
inventories. We will see that many luxuries 
cost considerably more a hundred years ago 
than the same things do now. Some, on the 
other hand, cost much less. What kind of 
cigars could they have been which were ob- 
tainable for two dollars a hundred.'^ 



Mr. Stephen Salisbury to Jonathan Hearsey, Dr. 

1817 ^ To 100 Dinners $150. 

V " 20 Doz. Lemmons 10. 

Aug. 27J " 10 lb Almonds 5. 

" 1 Box raisins 4.75 

" 100 Cigars 2 

" 12 lb Figs 3 

" Pears & Apples 2.25 

" Plumbs & currants 1.25 

" 10 Mellons 5. 

" 3 Doz. Oranges 3.38 

" 2 lb S. Candles 1 

" 1 Loaf Sugar 2.50 

" two kinds cake 5. 

" hire of 8 fruit baskets of Mr. 

Farnum 4 

" Do green baze 4.38 



68 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

To Man waggon bringing up 

Liquors $1.50 

" keeping 5 Horses 2.50 

" Do 2 Horses 1 

$208.51 

To Lumber for the Tent 23.54 

Labour & nails 14.90 

" hire of 4 Sails 4 

" Man horse & waggon twice to 
Boston to fetch & carry the 

sails 4.50 

255.45 

to ice 1 



256.45 
Deduct amt of Bill of Tent &c returned 27.98 



$228.47 



Reed Pay in full Sep 2, 1817 

Jonathan Hearsey. 

The ice-cream served in quart moulds at this 
dinner cost two dollars a quart; five plum- 
cakes, which weighed ten pounds each, cost 
twenty-five dollars in addition to twenty dol- 
lars expended on their ornamentation. There 
were five pink cakes, too, which weighed six 
pounds each, and which, duly ornamented, cost 
thirty-five dollars. The liquors, which, as has 
been said, consisted of Madeira wine, porter. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 69 

claret wine, port, brandy, and " Jamaica 
spirits " came to seventy-nine dollars. And 
there was a great deal of bottled cider, besides. 

But for the degree and diploma of the young 
gentleman in whose honor all these things were 
being eaten and drunk, Stephen Salisbury, 
Senior, paid the modest sum of ten dollars. 
Then, as now, it was not the educational side of 
Harvard which cost a parent dear. 

Not long after young Salisbury was gradu- 
ated from Harvard, the governing body of the 
college began to be called the " Faculty of the 
University," students were given a wider choice 
of studies, and they might or might not board 
at the commons as they pleased. This liberal- 
izing tendency was due to Professor George 
Ticknor, a graduate of Dartmouth, who had 
studied for some years in Europe, and to Presi- 
dent Kirkland. When President Kirkland re- 
signed, in 1829, on account of ill health, he 
was succeeded by Josiah Quincy, who had been 
for three terms mayor of Boston and whose 
chief service to his college was that he crushed 
out the riotous and rebellious spirit that had for 
so long been a part of Harvard life. Accord- 
ing to Doctor Andrew P. Peabody, " outrages 
involving not only destruction of property but 
peril of life — as for instance, the blowing up 
of public rooms in inhabited buildings — were 
then occurring every year." After the great 



70 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Rebellion of 1834 — a demonstration in the 
course of which torpedoes were set off in chapel 
— all the sophomores but three went on strike 
and so were sent home. Quincy was burned in 
effigy by the juniors, and the college work 
practically discontinued throughout the spring. 
Then rebellions disappeared from Harvard 
for all time. Very likely this was because Har- 
vard boys had now become *' men," 

Before taking leave of this long-ago Harvard 
to study its great rival, Yale, let us enjoy Doc- 
tor Peabody's picturesque account of student 
life at this period, a time when the college 
course cost only about two hundred dollars a 
year, and the long vacation came in winter 
in order that poor youths could eke out their 
income by teaching country schools. 

" The feather bed — mattresses not having 
come into general use — was regarded as a 
valuable chattel; but ten dollars would have 
been a fair auction price for the other contents 
of an average room, which were a pine bed- 
stead, washstand, table, and desk, a cheap 
rocking-chair and from two to four other chairs 
of the plainest fashion. I doubt whether any 
fellow student of mine owned a carpet. . . . Coal 
was just coming into use and hardly found its 
way into the college. The students' rooms — 
several of the recitation rooms as well — were 
heated by open-wood fires. Almost every 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 71 

room had, too, its transmittenda, a cannon-ball 
supposed to have been derived from the ar- 
senal, which on very cold days was heated to a 
red heat and placed as calorific radiant on a 
skillet or on some extemporized metallic stand; 
while at other seasons it was often utilized by 
being rolled downstairs at such times as might 
most nearly bisect a proctor's night-sleep. 
Friction matches — according to Faraday the 
most useful invention of our age — were not 
yet. Coals were carefully buried in ashes over 
night to start the morning fire; while in summer 
the evening lamp could be lighted only by the 
awkward and often bafiling process of striking 
fire with flint, steel, and tinder box. 

'* The student's life was hard. Morning 
prayers were in summer at six; in winter about 
half an hour before sunrise in a bitterly cold 
chapel. Thence half of each class passed into 
the several recitation rooms in the same build- 
ing — University Hall — and three quarters of 
an hour later the bell rang for a second set of 
recitations, including the remaining half of the 
students. Then came breakfast, which in the 
college commons consisted solely of coffee, 
hot rolls and butter, except when the members 
of a mess had succeeded in pinning to the 
nether surface of the table, by a two-pronged 
fork, some slices of meat from the previous 
day's dinner. Between ten and twelve every 



72 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

student attended another recitation or lecture. 
Dinner was at half past twelve, — a meal not 
deficient in quantity but by no means appe- 
tizing to those who had come from neat homes 
and well-ordered tables. There was another 
recitation in the afternoon, except on Satur- 
day; then evening prayers at six, or in winter 
at early twilight; then the evening meal, plain 
as the breakfast, with tea instead of coffee and 
cold bread of the consistency of wool, for the 
hot rolls. After tea the dormitories rang with 
song and merriment till the study bell, at eight 
in winter, at nine in summer, sounded the cur- 
few for fun and frolic, proclaiming dead silence 
throughout the college premises. 

" On Sundays all were required to be in 
residence, not excepting even those whose 
homes were in Boston; and all were required to 
attend worship twice each day at the college 
chapel. On Saturday alone was there permis- 
sion to leave Cambridge, absence from town 
at any other time being a punishable offence. 
This weekly liberty was taken by almost every 
member of the college, Boston being the uni- 
versal resort; though seldom otherwise than 
on foot, the only public conveyance then being 
a two-horse stage-coach, which ran twice a 
day." 

Saybrook, Connecticut, was the town first 
chosen to be the site of what is to-day Yale 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 73 

University. Connecticut had been bearing its 
share of Harvard's support but, after some fifty 
years, began to feel the need of a collegiate 
school of its own. The idea took definite form 
at a meeting of Connecticut pastors in Sep- 
tember, 1701, as a result of which each one 
present made a gift of books to the proposed 
college. The infant institution thus started 
was presented by a citizen of Saybrook with 
the use of a house and lot. And this plant was 
quite adequate for some time, inasmuch as the 
college, during the first six months of its life, 
consisted of a president and a single student! 
In fifteen years only fifty -five young men were 
graduated. 

It would seem as if the competition for so 
tiny a college would not have been keen, but 
according to the entertaining " General His- 
tory of Connecticut," which Reverend Samuel 
Peters published in 1781, there was as much 
turmoil over the final home of this little in- 
stitution as if it had been several times its 
modest size. He says: 

" A vote was passed at Hartford, to remove 
the College to Weathersfield ; and another at 
Newhaven, that it should be removed to that 
town. Hartford, in order to carry its vote into 
execution, prepared teams, boats, and a mob, 
and privately set off for Saybrook, and seized 
upon the College apparatus, library and stu- 



74 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

dents, and carried all to Weathersfield. This 
redoubled the jealousy of the saints at New- 
haven, who thereupon determined to fulfil their 
vote; and accordingly, having collected a mob 
sufficient for the enterprise, they set out for 
Weathersfield, where they seized by surprise 
the students, library, &c, &c. But on the road 
to Newhaven, they were overtaken by the 
Hartford mob, who, however, after an unhappy 
battle, were obliged to retire with only a part 
of the library and part of the students. The 
quarrel increased daily, everybody expecting 
a war; and no doubt such would have been the 
case had not the peacemakers of Massachu- 
setts Bay interposed with their usual friend- 
ship, and advised their dear friends of Hart- 
ford to give up the College to Newhaven. This 
was accordingly done to the great joy of the 
crafty Massachusetts, who always greedily 
seek their own prosperity, though it ruin their 
best neighbors. The College being thus fixed 
forty miles further west from Boston than it 
was before tended greatly to the interest of 
Harvard College; for Saybrook and Hartford 
out of pure grief, sent their sons to Harvard 
instead of to the College at Newhaven." 

This account of Yale's early history is full 
of obvious exaggerations; but it is a fact that 
the college led a wandering life for more than 
seventeen years, and that the rivalry over its 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 75 

site was far from friendly at the last. Scarcely 
had the college chosen a habitation, however, 
when its outlook quite changed. For now there 
came to it some valuable gifts, which deter- 
mined its name and its bent. Elihu Yale, who 
gave these gifts, had appropriately been born 
in New Haven. His epitaph in the churchyard 
at Wrexham in Wales is often quoted : 

" Born in America, in Europe bred. 
In Afric travelled and in Asia wed. 
Where long he lived and thrived; at London 

dead. 
Much Good, some 111 he did; so hope's all even. 
And that his Soul through Mercy's gone to 

Heaven." 

This epitaph differs from many of its class 
in being really autobiographic. For, though 
born in New England, Yale had been educated 
abroad and had made a fortune and a career 
in the East Indies. At the time he sent his 
first gifts to Yale, he was Governor of Fort St. 
George, now Madras. These gifts consisted of 
a large box of books, his portrait by Sir God- 
frey Kneller, the arms of King George, and 
£200 worth of English goods. The portrait 
is still preserved in the Art Gallery, but the 
coat of arms was destroyed at the time of the 
Revolution. From a contemporary account 
we learn that, after receiving these gifts, the 



76 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

trustees " solemnly named " the new building 
Yale College. " Upon which the Hon. Col. 
Taylor represented Governor Yale in a speech 
expressing his great satisfaction; which ended 
we passed to the Church and there the Com- 
mencement was carried on. . . . After which 
were graduated ten young men, whereupon the 
Hon. Gov. Saltonstall in a Latin speech con- 
gratulated the Trustees in their success and in 
the comfortable appearance with relation to 
the school. All which ended, the gentlemen 
returned to the college hall, where they were 
entertained with a splendid dinner, and the 
ladies at the same time were also entertained 
in the Library. After which they sung the 
first four verses of the 65th Psalm, and so the 
day ended." 

The course of study pursued at old Yale 
as at old Harvard was based on the ancient 
scholastic curriculum of the English univer- 
sities, the backbone of which was theology and 
logic. Though not specifically designed, as 
Harvard had been, to train young men for the 
ministry, this second New England college 
kept that end quite distinctly in view, and as 
the brethren who founded the college were, 
their successors have continued to be, Congre- 
gational ministers in the State of Connecticut. 
Of the one hundred and ten tutors connected 
with the college during its first century, only 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 77 

forty -nine were laymen; and the president of 
the institution has always been a clergyman. 
When Timothy Cutler, chosen in 1719 to be 
head of the college, turned Churchman and 
began to draw after him some of the tutors who 
had become interested in the Episcopacy 
through Bishop Berkeley, he and the men thus 
disaffected were excused from further connection 
with the college. But there was no ill-feeling 
about this, as is clear from the fact that Berke- 
ley conveyed to the trustees, on his return to 
England in 1732, his farm of ninety-six acres 
at Whitehall, the income of which was to be 
used for scholarships. The following year he 
sent the college nearly a thousand volumes, 
valued at five hundred pounds, the best col- 
lection of books that, up to that time, had been 
brought to America. 

South Middle College, built in 1752 from 
money which was raised partly by a lottery, 
was modeled on " red Massachusetts " at Cam- 
bridge. It is the oldest Yale building still 
standing. In and out of its ancient doors, 
more than a century and a half ago, strolled 
students in caps and gowns — for this academic 
costume was worn at Yale in the eighteenth 
century — as well as tutors in frock coats, 
cocked hats, and perukes; a curious " View of 
Yale College", made in 1786, preserves these 
types for us. Freshmen, at Yale as at Harvard, 



78 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

were treated almost like the fags of the English 
public schools in these early days. From a 
book of " Freshman Laws " the following rules 
have been extracted: 

" The Freshmen, as well as other under- 
graduates, are to be uncovered, and are for- 
bidden to wear their hats (unless in stormy 
weather) in the front door-yard of the Presi- 
dent's or Professor's house, or within ten rods 
of the person of the President, eight rods of 
the Professor, and five rods of a tutor." 

"A Freshman shall not play with any mem- 
ber of an upper class without being asked." 

*' In case of personal insult a junior may call 
up a Freshman and reprehend him. A Sopho- 
more, in like case, must obtain leave from a 
Senior, and then he may discipline a Fresh- 
man." 

" Freshmen shall not run in college-yard, 
or up or down stairs, or call to anyone through 
a college window." 

Students might not even address each other 
in the English language at the Yale of these 
far-away days, but had to talk in Latin ! One 
mode of punishment was for the president to 
cuff or box on the ear, *' in a solemn and formal 
manner, at chapel freshmen and commencing 
Sophomores " who had broken one or another 
of the endless rules of the institution. But 
there was no bodily flogging such as that at 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 79 

Harvard which Samuel Sewall describes with 
such unction. And some of the punishments 
were humorously fitted to the crime in the 
manner advocated by Gilbert and Sullivan's 
Mikado. Thus a student who had been dis- 
orderly from too much drink, or had been late 
at prayers, was sometimes appointed " Butler's 
waiter " and compelled to ring the chapel bell 
for a week or two. The butler here, as at Har- 
vard, was a very imposing person, a licensed 
monopolist, who kept his buttery in a con- 
venient apartment of South Middle and dis- 
pensed to such as had money or credit " cider, 
metheglin, and strong beer, together with loaf 
sugar (' saccharum rigidum') pipes, tobacco. 

During the Revolution, the college was all 
but broken up, only the seniors, under Tutor 
Dwight, staying at New Haven. No public 
Commencement was held between 1777 and 
1781, and the salaries of the college officers at 
this time and when the war closed were paid 
in terms of beef, pork, wheat, and Indian 
corn. 

This stringency in the currency helps us to 
understand one worthy parson's protest over 
a certain student entertainment of the day. 
In 1788 the " Junior Sophister Class " gave a 
theatrical performance, during election week, 
of " Tancred and Sigismunda," and followed 



80 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

it with a farce of the lads' own composing, re- 
lating to events in the Revolutionary War. 
From the students' point of view, the occasion 
was a very successful one, but Reverend An- 
drew Eliot was tremendously shocked, we 
learn, by the language of some of the charac- 
ters in the farce. He strongly disapproved, also, 
of impersonation of women by young men, 
which the exigencies of the situation made 
necessary. " Female apparell and ornaments," 
he writes in obvious horror, " were put on 
some, contrary to an express statute. Besides it 
cost the lads £60! " The italics are ours; they 
serve to suggest the climax of this worthy 
gentleman's indignation. For, revolting as it 
was to his taste to see college boys tricked out 
as women, the expenditure by Yale students 
just then of sixty pounds for a theatrical per- 
formance was an offence far more appalling. 

It was just at this time that Yale enjoyed 
the single literary period of its history. John 
Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, David Humph- 
reys, and Joel Barlow, Yale men all, who had 
aided the cause of Independence with sword 
as well as with pen, together with three Hart- 
ford wits, contributors to The American Mer- 
cury, constituted at this time a mutual ad- 
miration society which was generally spoken 
of as " The Seven Pleiades of Connecticut." 
The poems they wrote are little read nowa- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 81 

days, but they are historically interesting none 
the less — particularly Barlow's Columbiad. 
And John Trumbull and Timothy Dwight are 
entitled to special mention here, for the reason 
that they were soon made tutors of the college 
and by their influence served to broaden the 
course of study in the direction of the humani- 
ties. 

Timothy Dwight was the president of Yale 
from 1795-1817, succeeding in that high office 
Doctor Ezra Stiles, who had served from 1777 
and was widely renowned as the best scholar of 
his time in New England. Dwight is less famed 
as a writer than as an executive officer, but his 
" Travels in New England and New York " 
is one of the best books about old New Eng- 
land extant and has probably made him known 
to thousands of people only incidently inter- 
ested in his relation to the college. Under his 
administration, the first of Yale's professional 
schools — that for the study of medicine — was 
organized in 1810 with the assistance of the 
State Medical Society, while under his successor, 
Jeremiah Day, who served the college from 
1817 to 1846, the Divinity School in 1822, and 
the Law School two years later, began their 
careers. Thus by 1825 Yale was really a uni- 
versity. 

Because Yale is in a sense a daughter of 
Harvard — her founders, early presidents, and 



82 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

tutors being of necessity Harvard men — some 
comparison between the institutions naturally 
suggests itself. Founded under similar aus- 
pices and for similar purposes, the two colleges 
have diverged widely in spirit. Cambridge 
came to be known as the source of most of what 
is best in American letters; New Haven has 
never claimed any such distinction. A certain 
severity, however, has always marked the 
training given at Yale. Thus, the aim being 
to fit students for the hard realities of life, 
" discipline rather than culture, power rather 
than grace, ' light ' rather than ' sweetness ' 
has ever been . . . the result of her teachings." ^ 
The third college to be started in New England 
was Brown, which has just been celebrating 
its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. This 
college was Baptist in its origin and in its aims. 
It owes its existence to the very natural desire 
of Roger Williams's followers to secure for their 
churches educated ministers who would not 
have to undergo the restrictions of denomina- 
tional influence and sectarian tests. Just as 
Roger Williams's principles had brought him 
into collision with the ruling powers of Massa- 
chusetts, so the principles of his followers were 
far from being in accord with those in charge of 
the higher institutions of education in New 
England. There was nothing for the Baptists 

^ Henry A. Beers in Scribner's Monthly for April, 1876. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 83 

to do, therefore, but to start a college of their 
own. 

At Hopewell in New Jersey, such a college 
or seminary had already been inaugurated (in 
1756), by the Reverend Isaac Eaton and had 
attained such success that certain zealous Bap- 
tists determined to give an institution of the 
same kind to the settlement which Roger Will- 
iams had founded. The Reverend James Man- 
ning, a graduate of the Hopewell Academy, 
was entrusted with the business end of the 
undertaking, and in the summer of 1763, visited 
Newport to arrange for the establishment of 
his college. One very interesting and signifi- 
cant thing about the charter which Doctor 
Manning soon obtained was that, while it se- 
cured ample privileges to the Baptists by 
several clear and explicit provisions, it recog- 
nized throughout the grand Rhode Island prin- 
ciple of civil and religious freedom. Thus, 
though Brown was then and is to-day a Bap- 
tist college, its governing body is by law dis- 
tributed among Friends, Congregationalists, 
and Episcopalians as well as Baptists. Yet 
the president of this institution, which Man- 
ning succeeded in launching in 1764, " must 
forever be of the denomination called Baptists." 

Though Rhode Island had been selected by 
the projectors of this college as the home of 
their new institution, and though a liberal and 



84 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

ample charter had been secured, the college 
was still without funds, without students, and 
without any definite means of support. Its 
executive officer must obtain his income from 
a church pastorate until such time as the col- 
lege should become a " going concern." For 
'this reason it was that the College of Rhode 
Island began its career in Warren, ten miles 
from Providence, where Manning proceeded 
to discharge the duties of minister as well as 
those of a teacher. At the second annual meet- 
ing of the corporation, held in Newport, Sep- 
tember 3, 1765, this resourceful man was 
formally elected, in the words of the records, 
" President of the College, Professor of Lan- 
guages and other branches of learning, with 
full power to act in these capacities at Warren 
or elsewhere." On that same day, as appears 
from an original paper now on file in the ar- 
chives of the Brown Library, the president 
matriculated his first student, William Rogers, 
a lad of fourteen, the son of Captain William 
Rogers of Newport. Not only was this lad 
the first student, but he was also the first 
freshman class. Indeed for a period of nearly 
ten months, he constituted the entire student 
body! 

At the first Commencement of the college, 
held in the meeting-house at Warren, Septem- 
ber 7, 1769, seven students took their Bache- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 85 

lor's degree. The occasion was so important 
that there was then and there inaugurated the 
earhest State hohday in the history of Rhode 
Island. From a contemporary account, we 
learn that both the president and the candi- 
dates for degrees showed their American loy- 
alty on this day by wearing clothing of Ameri- 
can manufacture. We are glad to be told, also, 
that all present " behaved with great de- 
corum." 

Thus far the new institution possessed abso- 
lutely no college edifices, but so great was the 
interest aroused by the first Commencement 
that Providence and Newport now bestirred 
themselves to raise subscriptions which would 
bring the infant institution to their respective 
settlement. Providence won the day — and 
the college. " The people of Newport had 
raised ", says Manning in this connection, 
" four thousand pounds lawful money, tak- 
ing in their unconditional subscription. But 
Providence presented four thousand, two hun- 
dred and eighty pounds, lawful money and 
advantages superior to Newport in other re- 
spects." On May 14, 1770, therefore, the 
foundations of the first college building. Uni- 
versity Hall, were laid in Providence, John 
Brown, who led in the destruction of Gaspee, 
two years later, placing the corner-stone. The 
site selected was on the crest of a hill which 



86 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

had formed part of the " home lot " of Chadd 
Brown, associate and friend of Roger WiUiams 
and the " first Baptist Elder in Rhode Island." 

Yet the college was not yet called Brown, this 
name being first given to it in 1804 in honor 
of Honorable Nicholas Brown, who had been 
graduated under Manning in 1786, and who 
in 1792 began his benefactions by presenting 
to the corporation the sum of five hundred 
dollars, to be expended in the purchase of law 
books for the library. In 1804 he gave to his 
college the then unprecedented sum of five 
thousand dollars as a foundation for a profes- 
sorship of oratory and belles lettres. When he 
died in September, 1841, the entire sum of his 
recorded benefactions was estimated at one 
hundred and sixty thousand dollars. 

During the Revolution, the college edifice 
on its lofty hill was occupied as a barracks and 
afterwards as a hospital by the American and 
French forces. When the war was over, Presi- 
dent Manning represented Rhode Island in the 
Congress of the Federation. Brown may thus 
quite justly lay claim to intimate participa- 
tion in the making of these United States. 
Manning died in 1791 and was succeeded by 
Jonathan Maxcy. When Doctor Maxcy re- 
signed the presidency in 1802, Asa Messer took 
the office. To him, in 1826, succeeded the 
Reverend Doctor Francis Wayland, who served 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 87 

until 1855. During these various changes in 
administration, the college had been steadily 
growing in the number of its buildings and in 
power. At the time when Manning was strug- 
gling to establish the college, Reverend Morgan 
Edwards was securing subscriptions abroad for 
its support; and never has Brown lacked both 
effective friends among the money-givers and 
impressive scholars in its faculty. 

Picturesque customs, too, and a very gener- 
ous attitude towards " town " as well as " gown ", 
have here obtained from the beginning. The 
John Brown who laid the corner-stone of the 
first college building graciously treated the 
entire assemblage to punch after his labors 
were over, and similar hospitality, though 
differently expressed, has been extended by the 
college to the community ever since. Com- 
mencement at Brown has been a community 
holiday from the earliest days of the college. 
An " old citizen ", writing in the Providence 
Journal of July 2, 1851, concerning the college 
about 1800, has said that " everybody had 
commencement day. It was the season when 
country cousins returned all the calls and visits 
which they had received the past year. ' You 
will come and see us at commencement ' was 
the stereotyped invitation. And sure enough 
they did come. The principal mode of con- 
veyance was the square-top chaise and the 



88 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

visitors would begin to arrive on Monday. On 
Tuesday towards sunset every avenue to the 
town was filled with them. In the stable-yards 
of the ' Golden Ball Inn ', the ' Montgomery 
Tavern ', and other public houses on Wednes- 
day morning, you could see hundreds of their 
chaises, each numbered by the hostlers on the 
dashers with chalk to prevent mistakes. 

" The literary exercises of commencement 
season began on Tuesday. . . . How long the 
twilight of Tuesday used to appear. For the 
town was on tiptoe to witness the illumination of 
the college building this evening. . . . Scarcely 
is the sun down before the human current be- 
gins to set towards the hill and before it is 
fairly dark the college yard is filled with ladies 
and gentlemen of all ages and sizes. Not a 
light is to be seen at the college windows. Anon 
the college bell rings and eight tallow candles 
at each window shed their rich luxuriant yellow 
light on the crowd below. . . . The band arrange 
themselves on the front steps of the old chapel, 
and make the welkin ring again. . . . All could 
not ' go to college ', all could not talk Latin or 
make almanacs, but all could see an illumination 
and could hear music. So those who could do 
no more were fully satisfied with the college for 
these benefits and advantages." 

Commencement itself was held in the Old 
Baptist Church, erected in 1775 with this very 




OLD BAPTIST MEETING HOUSE, PROVIDENCE, R. I. 




O, W 

tq hJ 
ffi o 

u 
^?^ 

H 

s2 

O Q 
§^ 

z^ 

o 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 89 

use in mind, and the " learned faculty " were 
wont to occupy the stage on the north side of 
the pulpit, while the graduating class sat on 
the south side, and the band of music valiantly 
did their duty in the west gallery. At noon 
the entire company marched to the college for 
dinner, after which came three hours more of 
oratory — again in the Old Baptist. When the 
program came finally to an end and degrees 
had been conferred, the procession once more 
proceeded to the college — and Commencement 
proper was at an end. A religious meeting at 
the Old Baptist in the evening brought the 
day's festivities to an appropriate close. 

The friendly relations between the students 
and the community at Brown is very likely 
due to the fact that among the most important 
of the early rules was that providing " that 
each student treat the inhabitants of the town 
. . . with civility and good manners." It was 
long one of the entrance requirements that 
every student transcribe these laws and cus- 
toms; the resulting copy was then signed by 
the president and was kept in the student's 
possession, while an undergraduate, as evi- 
dence of his admission. Before me, as I write, 
is a copy of these " Laws And Customs of 
Rhode Island College, 1774." 

College rules during the eighteenth century 
are all a good deal alike, but Rhode Island Col- 



90 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

lege showed its individuality in this provision, 
at least: " Such as regularly and statedly keep 
the seventh day as the Sabbath are exempted 
from the law [requiring church attendance 
* on the First Day of the week steadily '] and 
are only required to abstain from secular con- 
cerns which would interrupt their fellow stu- 
dents." Another rule which would be found at 
this college only is: " That no student wear 
his hat within the College walls, excepting those 
who steadily attend the Friends' Meeting." 
There was, too, a unique provision exempting 
" young gentlemen of the Hebrew nation " from 
the rule which made it an offence to deny that 
the New Testament was of divine authority. 

Ample provision was made that the students 
at this institution should be well nourished. 
In 1773 these orders were established for the 
regulation of the commons: 

FOR DINNER EVERY WEEK 

Two meals of salt beef and pork, with peas, beans, 
greens, roots, etc., and puddings. For drink, good 
small beer and cider. 

Two meals of fresh meat, roasted, baked, broiled, 
or fried, with proper sauce or vegetables. 

One meal of soup and fragments. 

One meal of boiled fresh meat with proper sauce 
and broth. 

One meal of salt or fresh fish, with brown bread. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 91 

FOR BREAKFAST 

Tea, coffee, chocolate, or milk porridge. With 
tea or coffee, white bread with butter, or brown 
bread, toasted with butter. With chocolate or milk 
porridge, white bread without butter. With tea 
coffee and chocolate brown sugar. 

FOR SUPPER 

Milk, with hasty pudding, rice, samp, white 
bread, etc. Or milk porridge, tea, coffee or choco- 
late, as for breakfast. 

The several articles or provisions above men- 
tioned, especially dinners, are to be diversified and 
changed as to their succession through the week, 
or as much as may be agreeable; with the addition 
of puddings, apple pies, dumplings, cheese, etc., 
to be interspersed through the dinners, as often as 
may be convenient and suitable. 

All the articles of provision shall be good, genuine 
and unadulterated. 

The meals are to be provided at stated time, and 
the cookery is to be well and neatly executed. 

That the steward sit at meals with the stu- 
dents, unless prevented by company or business 
and exercise the same authority as is customary 
and needful for the head of a family at his 
table. 

That the steward be exemplary in his moral con- 
duct, and do not fail to give information to the 
authority of the College against any of the students 
who may transgress any of the College orders and 



92 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

regulations; and to this purpose that he keep by 
him a copy of the same. 

For the services above mentioned, that the stew- 
ard be allowed and paid by every person boarding 
in Commons, one dollar per week; to be paid at 
the expiration of each quarter; if not, interest 
until paid. 

This was in the earliest days of the Commons 
and before the Revolution, when the purchasing 
power of a dollar was large. The annual ex- 
penses at Brown I find advertised somewhat 
later on as 

College bills, including Tuition, Room, 

Rent Library etc $54 

Board in Commons about $75 



$129 

Dartmouth College may be traced back to 
the interesting project of founding at Bermuda 
an institution for the education of Indian 
youth, to promote which Bishop Berkeley came 
to America on money left to him by Hester 
Vanhomrigh, after she had been flouted by 
Dean Swift ! ^ For among the first students 
educated at Yale College on the income of the 
Berkeley estate was Eleazer Wheelock, founder 
of Dartmouth; and Wheelock, in 1755, had 

1 See my " Romance of Old New England Roof-Trees." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 93 

opened More's Indian Charity School because 
he had Berkeley's ideal distinctly in his mind. 
The first Indian youth received into Eleazer 
Wheelock's family was Samson Occom, a Mo- 
hegan Indian who was so much of a scholar 
and possessed such rare personal charm that, 
when sent to England in the interest of Whee- 
lock's new institution, he was able to induce 
all the great people, from the king down, to 
subscribe to the projected college. This re- 
markable Indian never lost sight for a mo- 
ment, however, of the object of his visit and, 
when he had pushed his subscription up to 
eleven hundred pounds and placed this treasure 
under a board of trust headed by Lord Dart- 
mouth, he calmly returned to his own America 
and to Wheelock, who had so greatly trusted 
him. 

In August, 1770, less than a month after 
George III had evoked the charter " wise and lib- 
eral " which gave to the New World the insti- 
tution which was to be called Dartmouth Col- 
lege, — in recognition of the kindness and in- 
terest of the second Earl of Dartmouth, — 
Wheelock, with teams and laborers, pushed 
his way through the " dreary wood " to Han- 
over to begin his herculean task of getting the 
college started. The first building was a log 
hut about eighteen feet square, built " without 
stone, brick, glass or nail." Oiled paper prob- 



94 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

ably did duty for windows, after the fashion 
of the time in all poorer habitations; and no 
nails were needed, because the logs were dove- 
tailed. 

To this hut came soon Mrs. Wheelock, Tutor 
Woodward, thirty students (among them two 
Indians), and four slaves, the lady and the 
tutor riding in a carriage which had been given 
by John Thornton of England.^ But for all 
they rode in a carriage, they had not found the 
approach easy; trees had to be felled before 
them as they pushed their way into this wilder- 
ness. Yet they made so notable an accession 
to the little colony that with their coming col- 
lege life at Dartmouth may be said to have be- 
gun. 

In the year following, 1771, Sir John Went- 
worth, attended by a retinue of sixty gentlemen, 
came up from Portsmouth to be present at 
Dartmouth's first Commencement. This was 
a really brave act on the part of the elegant 
Colonial governor; for there was danger from 
wild beasts as well as from wild Indians in 
journeying to Dartmouth thus early, and his 
party probably had to camp out at least two 
nights on the way. Wheelock, to be sure, had 
come before, but in the words of the college 
ditty: 

1 Mrs. M. R. P. Hatch in the New England Magazine for April, 
1905. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 95 

" Eleazer Wheelock was a very pious man, 
He went into the wilderness to teach the In- 
di-an." 

It is one thing to undertake a hazardous 
journey in pursuit of an ideal; it is quite an- 
other to do the same thing as part of one's 
official routine. When Timothy Dwight, presi- 
dent of Yale College, visited Hanover in 1797, 
the settlement contained only forty houses. 
So I repeat that Governor John Wentworth 
is deserving of distinct credit for having been 
present at a Dartmouth Commencement as 
early as 1771. 

During the first ten years of its life, Dart- 
mouth graduated ninety-nine men as against 
fifty-five at Harvard and thirty-six at Yale. 
And Dartmouth was the only college in New 
England that kept her doors open and con- 
ferred degrees each year during the Revolu- 
tion. To be sure, the war did not come very 
near to the college in the wilderness. " Some 
reports of cannon," Wheelock wrote in his 
diary, June 17, 1775. " We wait with im- 
patience to hear the occasion and the event." 
How long they had to wait for news of the 
battle of Bunker Hill I do not know. But it 
takes us back in a flash to those far-away days, 
and especially to the unique conditions at this 
primitive college, to learn that the cannon's 
sound was first detected by one of the Indians 



96 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

who chanced to be lying with his ear to the 
ground. 

When President Wheelock died in 1779, at 
the age of sixty-eight, he was succeeded by his 
son, John, then twenty-five years of age. For 
a period of thirty-six years this incumbent 
maintained a successful administration, en- 
larging the Faculty, extending the curriculum, 
providing new buildings, establishing a medi- 
cal department, and visiting France, Holland, 
and England to seek further financial aid for 
his institution. Under his administration, after 
what has been described as " a long agony of 
effort," Dartmouth Hall first came into being. 
In 1795, the College Church, in which Com- 
mencement exercises have since been held, 
was built by private subscription. In the con- 
test between the college and the university, 
this church was once held by garrison and bar- 
ricade for three days and three nights, in order 
to make sure that the college Commencement 
of August 17, 1817, might be held there just as 
previous Commencements had been. 

Daniel Webster, who defended Dartmouth's 
interests in one of the most famous law cases 
in which a college was ever involved,^ gradu- 

^ This was one of the most important cases in constitutional 
law ever decided bj^ the United States Supreme Court. The issue 
involved was the right conferred upon Dartmouth Trustees by 
the British Crown in 17G9 to govern the college and fill all vacancies 
in their body. Tliis right was ably defended by Daniel Webster. 
See New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. v, p. 796. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 97 

ated from the college in 1801. Webster was the 
star of this class, as Rufus Choate was of the 
class graduated eighteen years later. Salmon 
P. Chase, whom Lincoln declared to be " one 
and a half times bigger than any other man 
I have ever seen ", received his degree here in 
1816. 

The tradition of Indian obligation still lin- 
gers at this college among the hills of New 
Hampshire and is commemorated on Class 
Day by a very beautiful custom. For then, 
on the eve of their entrance into the real battle of 
life, the seniors assemble in the college park 
and, before the tower of mediaeval pattern 
which has been erected near the site of the old 
pine, renowned for its traditional relation with 
Indian students, together smoke pipes of peace, 
all of which are solemnly broken afterwards. 
While the Dartmouth of the twentieth cen- 
tury thus follows a custom dear to the Red- 
men who once roamed this very place, the 
spirit of Eleazer Wheelock must hover very 
close to the college which he founded out of 
love for the Indian, and which he lived to see 
grow up into a very inspiring and impressive 
institution. 

Williams College, the fifth institution for 
higher education to be established in New 
England, traces its history back to the troub- 
lous times of the French and Indian Wars. Its 



98 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

site adjoins that of Fort Massachusetts, the 
farthest west of the chain of forts which con- 
stituted our defence against Indian encroach- 
ments; and the man for whom the college 
is named was Ephraim Williams, captain of 
the company of soldiers here stationed. As 
a reward for his faithful service in this con- 
nection, Williams was, in 1750, granted one 
hundred and ninety acres in the east township 
of the Hoosac and thus became the owner of 
the very meadow in which Fort Massachusetts 
stood. By his will the doughty captain pro- 
vided that within five years after peace had 
been established, his real estate should be 
sold, and from the income thus derived there 
should be maintained and supported " a free 
school in the township west of Fort Massa- 
chusetts (commonly called West Township) 
forever, provided such township fall within 
the jurisdiction of the province of Massachu- 
setts Bay, and continue under that jurisdic- 
tion, and provided also the Governor of said 
province, shall (when a suitable number of 
inhabitants are settled there) incorporate the 
same into a town by the name of Williams- 
town." This will was dated July 22, 1755, 
Williams fell on the September 8 following, 
while engaged in the expedition against Crown 
Point. 

Thirty years passed before anything at all 



OLD NEAV ENGLAND 99 

was done toward establishing the school for 
which this donation provided. Then the neces- 
sary first steps were taken by Theodore Sedg- 
wick and eight other persons of the highest 
distinction in Western Massachusetts, almost 
all of whom were graduates of Yale College. 
That the new institution was to be more than 
a " free school " for Williamstown children 
was made clear at the very start by the vote 
that the school building be constructed of 
bricks and be seventy-two feet in length, forty 
feet wide, and three stories high. It was also 
provided that the school should be open " to 
the free citizens of the American states indis- 
criminately." 

Following the customs of the times, a lottery 
was held to raise additional funds for building, 
and with the money thus obtained and a sub- 
scription of two thousand dollars from the resi- 
dents of Williamstown, the school was opened 
October 20, 1791, with the Reverend Ebenezer 
Fitch, a graduate of Yale College, as preceptor, 
and Mr. John Lester as assistant. There were 
two departments at the beginning — a gram- 
mar school, or academy, and an English free 
school. In the first the usual college studies 
of that day were taught. In the second, dis- 
continued in 1793 when the institution was 
formally recognized as of collegiate standing, 
instruction was given in the common English 



100 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

studies to boys from the higher classes of the 
town. 

To the college opportunities here offered 
the response was enthusiastic from the first. 
No institution of similar appeal then existed 
nearer than Hanover, New Hampshire, or New 
Haven, Connecticut. Thus the president was 
able to write to a friend as early as 1799: 
" Things go well in our infant seminary. . . . 
But our ambition is to make good scholars rather 
than add to our numbers and in this we mean 
not to be outdone by any college in New Eng- 
land." With this early ambition of a Williams 
president, it is interesting to connect an extract 
from the inaugural address of President Hop- 
kins, made nearly forty years later: " I have 
no ambition ", he declared, " to build up here 
what would be called a great institution; the 
wants of the community do not require it. 
But I do desire and shall labor, that it may be a 
safe college; that its reputation may be sus- 
tained and raised still higher . . . that here 
there may be health, and cheerful study, and 
kind feelings, and pure morals." This ambition 
has been nobly realized at Williams; quality 
rather than quantity has been the aim from the 
first. From a devout group of Williams men 
emanated the great Board of American For- 
eign Missions, and it is to Williams that we 
owe, too, that famous definition of a college 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 101 

education: " Mark Hopkins on one end of a 
log with a student at the other/" ^ 

WilHams' first class, which was graduated 
in 1796, consisted of six members, and by 
the second decade of the nineteenth century 
there were not more than eighty students in 
the whole college, so that it was obviously 
rather alarming when one half of them de- 
clared their intention of withdrawing, with 
President Moore, to Amherst College on the 
other side of the mountains. The isolation of 
the college was felt at this time to be an almost 
insuperable barrier to its continued growth. 
To Emory Washburn, who entered the junior 
class in 1815, we are indebted for the following 
vivid glimpses of life in the Hoosac Valley at 
this early period: 

" During my residence in College, nothing 
in the form of stage-coach or vehicle for public 
communication ever entered the town. Once 
a week, a solitary messenger, generally on 
horseback, came over the Florida Mountain, 
bringing us our letters from Boston and tlie 
eastern part of the State. . . . And by some 
similar mode and at like intervals we heard 

^ This famous saying is attributed by Harper's Magazine (Sep- 
tember, 1881) to President, then General, Garfield, who at a meet- 
ing of Williams alumni held in New York to discuss the college's 
pressing need of books and apparatus said — after expressing his 
realization of the value and need of these things: " But give me a 
log-cabin in the center of the State of Ohio, with one room in it, 
and a bench with Mark Hopkins on one end of it and me on the 
other, and that would be a college good enough for me." 



102 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

from Stockbridge, Pittsfield, Troy and Albany. 
With the exception of these not a ripple of the 
commotions that disturbed the world outside 
of these barriers of hills and mountains, ever 
reached the unruffled calm of our valley life. 
In coming from my home in Leicester, Massa- 
chusetts, I was compelled to rely upon stage 
and chance. My route was by stage to Pitts- 
field, and thence by a providential team or 
carriage, the remainder of my journey. I have 
often smiled as I have recalled with what per- 
severing assiduity I waylaid every man who 
passed by the hotel, in order to find some one 
who would consent to take as a passenger a 
luckless wight in pursuit of an education under 
such difiiculties. 

" While such was the difficulty of access to 
the College, it presented little, to the eye of 
one who visited it for the first time, to reward 
the struggle it had cost him. When I joined 
it it had two buildings, and, I think, fifty-eight 
students, with two professors and two tutors. 
The East College was a fine, plain imposing 
structure, four stories in height, built of brick. 
. . . The West College contained the Chapel, 
which occupied the second and third stories 
of the south end of the building. . . . The only 
water we had to use, was drawn from a spring 
at the foot of the hill, south of the East College. 
And to that everv student from both Colleges 




WEST COLLEGE (WILLL\MS COLLEGE), 1790. 




PRESIDENT'S HOXTSE, WrTJ.IA^rs COTJ.EGE. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 103 

repaired with his pail as his necessities required. 
The consequence was, it must be confessed, 
that there was no excessive use of that element 
of comfort and neatness. Not one of the rooms 
or passage ways was painted. No one of the 
rooms was papered or ever had a carpet on it. 
And I do not beheve the entire furniture of 
any one room, excepting perhaps the bed, 
could have cost, or would have sold for, five 
dollars. 

" And yet it was not from the poverty of the 
students that the style of their rooms and their 
surroundings was thus humble and poverty- 
stricken. It was borrowed from the tradition- 
ary habits and fashion of the institution. It 
had grown up in a sequestered spot with limited 
means, while many of the early students had 
resorted to it because of its cheap education, 
and there was next to nothing to awaken any 
rivalry in the style of dress, furniture, or living, 
or even to arouse a comparison between these 
and what may have prevailed in other col- 
leges." ^ 

Even at Williams, however, there was a 
good deal of drinking, as our *' Old grad " goes 
on to admit. " Everybody at that day drank 
and so be it excited the animal spirits, it mat- 
tered not much what the liquor was." Will- 

^ Quoted from Reverend Calvin Durfee's " History of Williams 
College." 



104 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

iams students, like the other college boys of 
these early days, suffered greatly, it is plain, 
from a lack of organized athletics which would 
have provided a vent for their animal spirits. 

Bowdoin College only narrowly escaped hav- 
ing the name of John Hancock bestowed 
upon it. For its beginnings date back to the 
days when the political power of Hancock 
was at its zenith, and had his friends con- 
trolled both houses of the Great and General 
Court of Massachusetts, — as they did one 
house, — his name instead of that of his suc- 
cessor, James Bowdoin, would have distin- 
guished the new institution then just being 
started " in the vague Orient of Down East." 
From the portrait by Robert Feke which hangs 
in one of the halls of the college. Governor 
Bowdoin is seen to be a man of serene dignity 
and elegant habiliments. His bronze velvet coat, 
his gold-embroidered waistcoat of pearl-col- 
ored satin, his curling wig, and his lace ruffles 
all bespeak an imposing personality. Yet the 
special patron and benefactor of this strug- 
gling little college in the wilds of Maine was 
not the beruffled governor at all, but his son, 
James, at one time Minister Plenipotentiary to 
Spain. 

No less difficulty was experienced in determin- 
ing the local habitation of the college than in 
fixing upon its name. Portland contended 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 105 

vigorously for the honor, intending that the 
seat of the institution should be in Gorham, 
near by. But Brunswick on the Androscoggin 
was finally selected as the site, five townships 
in the wilds of Maine were donated as a source 
of funds, and the bill approving of the insti- 
tution was definitively signed by Governor 
Samuel Adams on June '24, 1794. Thus Bowdoin 
becomes the sixth college of the New England 
group, though it was not until 1802 that its 
first class was admitted. The first president 
chosen was Reverend Joseph McKeen, who 
had been graduated at Dartmouth in 1774, and 
was then a pastor at Beverly, Massachusetts. 
He was inaugurated in the grove of pines be- 
hind the present group of college buildings. 
His term saw only one class graduated, how- 
ever, the first, in which seven students took 
their degrees. Nathan Lord, who was the 
honored president of Dartmouth for a great 
many years, was a member of this class. 

The second president of Bowdoin was Rev- 
erend Jesse Appleton (Dartmouth, 1792), who 
was inaugurated in December, 1807. The 
twelve years during which he served were 
memorable and very successful ones in the 
history of the college. The number of stu- 
dents had now considerably increased, the 
teaching force had been strengthened, and from 
Honorable James Bowdoin (Harvard, 1771), a 



106 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

library, a gallery of paintings, a large collec- 
tion of minerals, and some valuable apparatus 
had been inherited.^ 

To succeed President Appleton, the Corpor- 
ation elected, in 1819, the Reverend William 
Allen, a graduate of Harvard who was at this 
time president of Dartmouth. The nineteen 
years of his service was signalized by the open- 
ing of the Maine Medical School in connection 
with the college, a school of which Doctor 
Nathan Smith, Doctor John D. Wells, and 
Doctor John Delemater were the first pro- 
fessors. Of Doctor Smith, who was very emi- 
nent in his profession, an amusing story is 
told. One day a messenger summoned him in 
all haste to set a broken limb, but when he 
reached the house to which he had been called, 
the patient was discovered to be a goose. 
Very gravely the doctor examined the fracture, 
opened his case, set and bound the limb, and 
promising to call the next day, took his un- 
perturbed departure. He did call the next day 
and for several days succeeding — and then he 
sent a bill for his services to the mischie- 
vous lads who had thought thus to disconcert 

1 While the name of the new institution was still being discussed 
Governor Bowdoin died, and it was then immediately determined 
that he should be the person memorialized by the college. His 
son greatly appreciated this and gave assurances of aid from the 
family. This promise he generously kept and, as a further sign of 
his interest, sent to the " Down East " college his grand-nephew and 
heir. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 107 

the young instructor of the Maine Medical 
School. 

Another very interesting character among 
the early members of the Bowdoin Faculty 
was Parker Cleaveland, son of a Revolutionary 
surgeon, who had been graduated from Har- 
vard *' the best general scholar in his class." 
He came to Bowdoin to stay for the rest of his 
long and distinguished life. For fifty -three 
years he was *' the genius of the place," min- 
eralogy being the subject of his special interest, 
though chemistry was the subject which he 
chiefly taught. For many years he gave popular 
lectures in the towns about the State, his ap- 
paratus, as he made these scientific excursions, 
being moved from place to place on a huge cart 
or sled drawn by a yoke of oxen. 

In Professor Cleaveland's handwriting, on 
a carefully treasured programme for Bowdoin's 
Commencement in 1825, may be found this 
announcement : 

*' Oration: Native Writers, 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 

Portland." 

Which brings us to the heyday of Bowdoin's 
history, the time when Franklin Pierce, later 
President of the United States, Jacob Abbott, 
Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hathorne (as the 



108 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

name was then spelled) were all studying to- 
gether under the Bowdoin pines. In the pref- 
ace to *' The Snow Image ", Hawthorne recalls 
the days at "a country college ", when the 
" two idle lads " (the book is dedicated to his 
classmate, Horatio Bridge) fished in the 
" shadowy little stream wandering riverward 
through the forest ", " shot gray squirrels ", 
" picked blueberries in study hours ", or 
" watched the logs tumbling in the Andro- 
scoggin." Hawthorne was then as shy and as 
removed from the mass of men as he was in 
later years; he could not be persuaded to take 
part in the Commencement exercises — though 
he led his class as a writer — nor to join them 
in having their profiles cut in paper, the method 
then used for having class pictures taken. The 
man who came nearest to being Hawthorne's 
friend while in college was Pierce, who was in 
the class above him. To the relation then be- 
gun may be traced the Great Romancer's ap- 
pointment as consul at Liverpool made by 
Pierce when he became President. 

Hawthorne began his first novel while at 
Bowdoin, but we have received from him no 
pictures of the daily life at this institution 
during these days of President Allen's adminis- 
tration. From the printed regulations we know, 
however, that students rose at six with the 
ringing of the bell, attended morning prayers 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 109 

immediately, and then went to the first recita- 
tion in a building deemed too cold by the Faculty 
to be used in winter for any exercise lasting 
more than fifteen minutes. Then came break- 
fast at commons, which probably did not take 
long, inasmuch as board for a day cost only a 
shilling at this period. At nine o'clock stu- 
dents retired to their rooms for study, and at 
eleven emerged for the midday recitation. 
After this, time was allotted for consulting the 
library, but " since no under-graduate could 
borrow books oftener than once in three weeks, 
and Freshmen were limited to one book at a 
time, this opportunity did not keep many away 
from dinner." In the afternoon came another 
study period and more recitations, then prayers; 
and after supper, until eight o'clock the students 
" recreated." 

For the Vermont boy there was Middlebury 
College, which dates from 1800 and which has 
always been called a child of Yale for the rea- 
son that President Timothy Dwight helped 
greatly to get the institution started. Doctor 
Dwight visited the village of Middlebury for 
the first time in 1798, - — just after the legisla- 
ture had granted a charter for the Addison 
County Grammar School. A building was even 
then being erected for this project, and Doctor 
Dwight urged strongly that, as no college was 
then in operation in Vermont and young men 



no SOCIAL LIFE IN 

were forced, at great inconvenience, to travel 
a long way to get their higher education, this 
be developed into the nucleus of a college. " The 
local situation, the sober and religious charac- 
ter of the inhabitants, their manners and vari- 
ous other circumstances, contribute ", it was 
pointed out, " towards making Middlebury a 
very desirable seat for such a seminary." Rev- 
erend Jeremiah Atwater, a graduate of Yale 
and for several years tutor there, was, upon 
the recommendation of Doctor Dwight, made 
first president of the budding college, he and 
Tutor Joel Doohttle, of the Yale class of 1799, 
constituting the entire Faculty for the seven 
students who made up the first class. 

Doctor Dwight made two visits to the col- 
lege in its early years, and after the second of 
these, in 1810, wrote: " It has continued to 
prosper, although its funds have been derived 
from private donations and chiefly, if not 
wholly, from the inhabitants of the town. The 
number of students is now one hundred and 
ten — probably as virtuous a collection of 
youths as can be found in any seminary in the 
world. The Faculty consists of a president, a 
professor of law, a professor of mathematics 
and natural philosophy, who teaches chemis- 
try, also, a professor of languages and two 
tutors. The inhabitants of Middlebury have 
lately subscribed $8,000 for the purpose of erect- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 111 

ing another collegiate building.^ When it is 
remembered that twenty-five years ago this 
spot was a wilderness, it must be admitted that 
these efforts have done the authors of them 
the highest honor." 

^ The allusion here is probably to Painter Hall, erected in 1814, 
and the home for a century now of Middlebury's most distinguished 
students. The oldest college building in Vermont, it is also one 
of the best existing examples of Colonial architecture of its class. 
Similarly beautiful is the chapel, erected in 1836, whose dome 
dominates the village landscape. 



112 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER III 

CHOOSING A PROFESSION 

DURING the seventeenth century the 
clergy were almost the only educated 
professional men in New England. Law- 
yers were few and were regarded with sus- 
picion for the reason that the clergy had set 
up the Mosaic code and thought its observance 
all that could possibly be desired. Though 
justice or an approximation thereto had been 
administered for centuries in the English courts, 
yet, under the theocracy which obtained in 
New England, there was almost no proper pro- 
tection, during the first hundred years of our 
history, for property, for life, or for liberty. 
So, since lawyers had no standing and trained 
physicians were to be found only here and there, 
to become a minister was obviously the line of 
least resistance. 

The various colleges, as we have seen, were 
all strongly theological in their bent; and all 
maintained professors of Hebrew and other 
studies looking to preparation for the ministry. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 113 

At Harvard the avowed object from the be- 
ginning had been the nurturing of a learned 
ministry. It is not surprising, therefore, to 
find that even so late as the middle of the 
eighteenth century the theological bias in this 
institution was undisturbed. 

In the year of President John Adams's gradu- 
ation, 1755, every one of the twenty-four grad- 
uates discussed a theological subject at Com- 
mencement — save one. That one was John 
Adams, who had already determined to become 
a lawyer at any cost, and who chose a political 
topic for his Commencement part. 

Nor did young ministers of the eighteenth 
century lack definite professional training for 
their work, even in the days before theological 
seminaries were established. It was customary 
for parsons of many years' experience to take 
into their families youths who had chosen the 
ministry for their career, with the result that 
several New England parsonages were vir- 
tually divinity schools. Harvard's own Di- 
vinity School, incorporated in 1826, graduated 
its first class in 1817. One member of this 
class was James Walker, " whose ethical genius 
made his presidency of Harvard one of the 
most noble of a long and honorable line." In 
the next class were John G. Palfrey, John 
Pierpont, and another president of Harvard, 
Jared Sparks. 



114 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

The lad whose tastes impelled him to the 
practice of medicine, on the other hand, was 
not obliged, in the early days, to take any col- 
lege or professional courses before setting out 
on his life-work. All he had to do was to get 
a kind of office-boy's place with some physician 
of standing, and after a season of reading his 
master's books, tending his master's horse, 
grinding his master's drugs, and mixing his mas- 
ter's plasters, he himself would become a dis- 
penser of *' physick " that either killed or cured. 
Occasionally, to be sure, a properly certificated 
person arrived from England and announced 
his readiness to serve a community as physi- 
cian. Thus I find in the Boston Neivs-Letter of 
February 25, 1725, the following " card ": 

" These are to give notice to all persons that 
John Eliot, chirurgeon to his Excellency Gov. 
Phillip's Regiment, . . . prescribes Physick 
and undertakes all manner of Operations in 
Chyrurgery & is every year supplied with 
fresh Drugs from London, and will undertake 
any Persons Malady or Wound as reasonably 
as any can pretend to." 

Presumably this " chirurgeon " found plenty 
to do, for men of his profession were exceed- 
ingly rare in the colonies thus early, ministers 
making it a part of their duty to give medical 
advice to those in need of such friendliness. As 
late as 1746, a Massachusetts town set aside 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 115 

five pounds for its minister in return for his 
serving the poor of the place with medicine, 
and Cotton Mather, President Hoar, President 
Rogers, and President Chauncey of Harvard 
College all practised medicine by virtue of the 
fact that they were professional curers of souls. 

This combination of physic and piety ap- 
pealed strongly to the Puritan, and Cotton 
Mather's medical work, " The Angel of Be- 
thesda ", was written to encourage the alliance. 
This book, which is still only in manuscript, is 
particularly interesting for the light it sheds 
on the early opposition to inoculation. Ma- 
ther's friend. Doctor Zabdiel Boylston, was 
the first physician to inaugurate this great 
forward step in medicine by inoculating his 
own son, a child six years old. 

A very curious custom arose in connection 
with inoculation. People went visiting for the 
sake of taking the cure away from home, and 
frequently little groups of friends assembled 
at some one's house and underwent in company 
the trying gradations of the treatment. Be- 
fore this custom became fashionable. Cotton 
Mather had a kinsman at his house taking the 
cure, who was subjected to very rough treat- 
ment at the hands of those opposed to this 
newest thing in medicine: 

*' My Kinsman, the Minister of Roxbury ", 
writes the Boston divine, *' being entertained 



116 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

at my House, that he might there undergo the 
Small-pox inoculated, and so Return to the 
Service of his Flock, which have the Contagion 
begun among them: Towards Three a clock 
in the Night, as it grew towards the Morning 
of this Day (November 14, 1721) some unknown 
Hands threw a fired Granado into the Cham- 
ber where my kinsman lay, and which uses to 
be my Lodging-Room. The Weight of the Iron 
Ball alone, had it fallen upon his Head, would 
have been enough to have done part of the 
Business designed. But the Granado was 
charged, the upper part with dried powder and 
what else I know not, in such manner that upon 
going off, it must have splitt, and have proba- 
bly killed the persons in the Room, and cer- 
tainly fired the Chamber, and speedily Laid 
the House in Ashes. But this Night there stood 
by me the angel of God whose I am and whom 
I serve; and the Merciful providence of my 
Saviour so ordered it, that the Granado pasing 
thro' the Window, had by the Iron in the mid- 
dle of the Casement, such a Turn given to it, 
that in falling on the Floor, the fired wild-fire 
in the Fuse was violently shaken out upon the 
Floor, without firing the Granado. When the 
Granado was taken up there was found a paper 
so tied with string about the fuse that it might 
out-live the breaking of the shell, — which 
had these words in it : — Cotton Mather, you 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 117 

Dog, Dam you: I'll enoculate you with this, 
with a pox to you." 

The time had passed when the Mathers 
might do what they would in Boston. But is it 
not a curious commentary on the reliance 
which may be placed on contemporary public 
opinion to recall that when Cotton Mather 
persecuted people for witchcraft, every one 
called him blessed, and when he advocated a 
really great reform in medicine, there were none 
so poor to do him reverence. 

As Cotton Mather was drawing to the end of 
his long life, there came to New England (in 
1718) William Douglass, a Scotsman, who 
was then about twenty-seven years old and 
had been trained in medicine at Leyden and 
at Paris. He was one of those violently op- 
posed to inoculation, but he established himself 
as a physician and practised in Boston almost 
up to the time of his death in 1752. He is the 
author of a number of books, in one of which 
he expressed himself thus concerning the med- 
ical profession: 

" In our plantations, a practitioner, bold, 
rash, impudent, a liar, basely born and edu- 
cated, has much the advantage of an honest, 
cautious, modest gentleman. In general the 
physical practice in our colonies is so per- 
niciously bad that excepting in surgery and 
some very acute cases, it is better to let nature 



118 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

under a proper regimen take her course, . . . 
than to trust to the honesty and sagacity of 
the practitioner. Our American practitioners 
are so rash and officious, the saying in . . . Ec- 
clesiasticus . . . may with much propriety be 
applied to them : * He that sinneth before his 
Maker let him fall into the hand of the phy- 
sician.' Frequently there is more danger from 
the physician than from the distemper. . . . 

"But sometimes, notwithstanding the mal- 
practice, nature gets the better of the doctor, 
and the patient recovers. Our practitioners 
deal much in quackery and qjiackish medicines, 
as requiring no labor of thought or composition, 
and highly recommended in the London quack- 
bills — in which all the reading of many of our 
practitioners consists. When I first arrived 
in New England, I asked ... a noted facetious 
practitioner what was their general method 
of practice. He told me their practice was very 
uniform: bleeding, vomiting, blistering, pur- 
ging, anodyne, and so forth." ^ 

And then, as an illustration of the amusing 
audacity of quacks in the English colonies, 
Doctor Douglass cites a medical advertisement 
in which, among other nostrums, the doctor 
announces " an elegant medicine to prevent 
the yellow fever and dry gripes in the West In- 
dies." This, Douglass thinks, is only to be 

1 " Summary," II. 351-352. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 119 

equalled by a similar advertisement published 
in Jamaica immediately after an earthquake 
had done great destruction there. The physi- 
cian offered to the public " pills to prevent 
persons or their effects suffering by earth- 
quakes." Physicians were not the only people 
attacked by this author, however, so we must 
take his caustic statements with several grains 
of salt. Good men and true were then, as now, 
to be found in this calling, and the profession 
of the physician was often hereditary — just as 
we have seen that of the preacher to be in the 
case of the Mathers and many another New Eng- 
land family. Doctor Benjamin Gott, who was a 
physician of some prominence in Massachu- 
setts in the middle of the eighteenth century, 
was one of the three sons of John Gott of Wen- 
ham, all of whom were destined for the " art 
and mysteries " of the doctor. The youngest 
of the three, Benjamin, was indentured to 
Doctor Samuel Wallis of Ipswich when about 
fourteen, and as his father died in 1722, before 
the term of apprenticeship had expired, his 
two elder brothers were charged in the will 
" to find him [Benjamin] with good and suffi- 
cient clothing during the time he is to live with 
Dr. Wallis as may appear by his indenture, 
and to pay him £200 in silver money or in good 
bills of credit when he arrives at the age of 
twenty-one years." 



120 



SOCIAL LIFE IN 



In due time Benjamin completed his student 
term, married the daughter of Reverend Robert 
Breck of Marlboro, and was himself in a po- 
sition to take in his brother-in-law as an ap- 
prentice. Thus when Reverend Mr. Breck 
died, on January 6, 1731, he bequeathed to 
Doctor Gott " two acres of land as recompense 
for instructing my son Robert in the rules of 
physic." This Robert Breck, Junior, however, 
appears to have educated himself in medicine 
only for the sake of using his skill while pur- 
suing the profession of a preacher. Many a 
minister followed this practice, Cotton Mather 
among others. But a younger brother of Robert 
Breck studied medicine and became a practicing 
physician of Worcester in 1743; Doctor Gott's 
oldest son, Benjamin, also became a physician 
and practiced in Brookfield; while iinna Gott, 
a daughter of the first Doctor Benjamin, married 
Doctor Samuel Brigham, a physician of Marl- 
boro, and their son, Samuel Brigham, practiced 
medicine in Boylston. That " doctoring " ran 
in this family seems sufficiently established. 

Doctor Benjamin Gott, the first, took into his 
office, on January 8, 1733 or 1734, a young man 
named Hollister Baker, then about sixteen, 
who was to stay with him until he should come 
of age. Baker's original indenture is very in- 
teresting for the light it throws on medical edu- 
cation in the year 1734. It runs as follows: 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 121 

THIS INDENTURE WITNESSETH, That Hol- 
lister Baker a minor aged about sixteen son of Mr. 
Eben"" Baker late of Marlborough in the County of 
Middlesex Gent. Deceased of his own free will and 
accord, and with the Consent of Benj^ Wood of 
Marlborough in ye County aforesaid his Guardian 
doth Put and Bind himself to be an Apprentice 
unto Benj'^ Gott of Marlboro in ye County afore- 
said Physcician to learn his Art, Trade or Mystery, 
and with him the said Benj^ Gott after the manner 
of an Apprentice, to Dwell and Serve from the Day 
of the Date hereof, for and during the full and just 
Term of five Years and four months next ensuing, 
and fully to be compleat and ended. During all 
which said Term, the said Apprentice his said Mas- 
ter and Mistress honestly and faithfully shall Serve, 
so long as his Master lives of said Term, their Se- 
crets keep Close their lawful and reasonable Com- 
mands every where gladly Do and Perform; Dam- 
age to his said Master and Mistress he shall not 
wilfully Do, his Masters Goods he shall not Waste, 
Embezel, Purloine or Lend unto others, nor suffer 
the same to be wasted or purloined; but to his 
power shall forthwith Discover, and make known 
the same unto his said Master and Mistress. Tav- 
erns and Alehouses he shall not frequent; at Cards, 
Dice or any other unlawful Game he shall not Play ; 
Fornication he shall not Commit nor Matrimony 
Contract with any Person, during said Term: 
From his Masters Service he shall not at any time 
unlawfully Absent himself But in all things as a 
good, honest and faithful Servant and Apprentice, 



122 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

shall bear and behave himself towards his said 
Master and Mistress during the full Term of five 
Years and four months Commencing as aforesaid. 

AND THE SAID Benj" Gott for himself Doth 
Covenant Promise, Grant and Agree unto, and with 
him said Apprentice in Manner and Form follow- 
ing, THAT IS TO SAY, That he will teach the said 
Apprentice or cause him to be Taught by the best 
Ways and Means that he may or can, the Trade, 
Art or Mystery of a Physician according to his own 
best skil and judgm't (if said Apprentice be capable 
to learn) and will Find and Provide for unto said 
Apprentice, good and sufficient meat Drink washing 
and lodging During said Term both in sickness and 
in health — his Mother all said Term finding said 
apprentice all his Cloathing of all sorts fitting for 
an Apprentice during said Term; and at the End 
of said Term, to dismiss said Apprentice with Good 
skill in arithmetick Lattin and also in the Greek 
through the Greek Grammar, 

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, The said Parties 
to these present Indentures have interchangeably 
set their Hands and Seals, in the Eighth Day of 
January — In the seventh Year of the Reign of 
Our Sovereign Lord George ye second by the Grace 
of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland; 
And in the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand Seven 
Hundred and thirty three four — 

Signed, Sealed and Delivered 

in Presence of Hollister Baker 

John Mead Benj-" Wood 

Elizabeth Woods Benj^ Gott 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 123 

This agreement makes it clear that five years 
and four months spent in doing chores, both 
household and professional, was Hollister Ba- 
ker's payment to Doctor Gott for his medical 
instruction — as it was also the medical course 
of the apprentice. This was the custom of the 
day; Doctor Gott had served Doctor Wallis 
in the same way, and youths so continued to 
serve even after the first medical school on 
the continent, that of Philadelphia, had been 
founded in 1765. 

Horace Davis, to whom we are indebted for 
these facts about the Gott family, has enter- 
tainingly pictured ^ the life which young Baker 
may have lived while fulfilling the terms of his 
apprenticeship. In so small a town as Marl- 
boro, Mr. Davis conjectures, there would 
probably have been no drug-shop, so that in 
one of the little front rooms of the doctor's 
house some small store would doubtless have 
been kept of such things as opium, antimony, 
Peruvian bark, mercury, nitre, sulphur, and 
ipecac, as well as of the reliable native reme- 
dies, elder, yellow dock, slippery elm, snake- 
root, saffron, and the rest. " Among these 
emblems of his future calling. Baker," he 
thinks, " very likely passed a good share of his 
time. 

" He would come down from his plain quarters 

^Transactions Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Vol. XII. 



124 



SOCIAL LIFE IN 



in the attic early in the morning and start the 
fire while Mrs. Gott attended to the children; 
then he would go out and look after the Doctor's 
horse. Before breakfast would come family 
prayers, when, according to tradition, the Doctor 
used to read from his Latin Bible. After break- 
fast he would saddle the Doctor's horse and 
bring him round to the front door, when his 
master would throw the saddle-bags over his 
back, stuffed with such medicines or instru- 
ments as the morning's work required, and ride 
away to his patients. Then perhaps Hollister 
would sit down to his ' arithmetick, Lattin, 
and Greek Grammar ', possibly dipping into 
some of the medical books which adorned the 
Doctor's shelves. 

*' After the midday dinner, perhaps the Doc- 
tor would take his apprentice with him to visit 
some patient in the village or send him on the 
old mare with remedies to some distant invalid, 
whom his master was unable to attend in per- 
son. And when the day's work was done the 
Doctor would look after the boy's studies and 
impart to him some knowledge of that ' art, 
trade and mystery ' which the boy was anxious 
to grasp. If the Doctor was kind and his mis- 
tress gentle, the lad's life might be very pleasant. 
... But it is certainly a far cry from the 
splendors of modern medical education to this 
solitary boy serving his master and mistress 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 125 

under a five year indenture for his board, lodging 
and tuition." 

This particular doctor appears to have been 
very kind, if his funeral notice, published in 
the Boston Neios-Letter of August 1, 1751, may 
be trusted: 

" Marlborough, July 27, 1751. On the 25th 
deceased, and this Day decently interr'd. Dr. 
Benjamin Gott, a learned and useful Physician 
and Surgeon : ^ the Loss of this Gentleman is 
the more bewail'd in these Parts, as he was not 
only a Lover of Learning and learned Men, and 
very hospitable and generous; but as he was 
peculiarly faithful to his Patients, moderate in 
his Demands, and charitable to the Poor; a 
Character very imitable by all in the Faculty; 
and was taken off in the very Meridian of Life, 
being but in the 46th Year of his Age." 

The career of another typical old-time 
physician has been sketched by Mrs. Harriette 
M. Forbes in her " Hundredth Town." The 
original of the picture is Doctor Ball of North- 
borough, Massachusetts, whose procedure on 
visiting the sick was usually as follows: "First 
he bled the arm, then gave a severe emetic, 

^ The excellent Doctor Gott, having acquired his profession by 
means of apprenticeship, was, of course, not really entitled to be 
called doctor. Even graduates in medicine were from 1768 to 1791 
obliged to content themselves with the degree M. B., Bachelor of 
Medicine. Three years of further study were necessary, at Phila- 
delphia, prior to 1792, if a man wished really to be entitled to be 
called Doctor of Medicine. From 1792 on, M. D. was the only 
degree given. 



126 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

followed by doses of calomel and jalap. In his 
' Resipee Book ' was to be found the following 
* Receipt to the Scratches ', ' one qrt fish worms 
washed clean, one pound hog's lard stewed to- 
gether, filtered through a strainer & add half- 
pint oil turpentine, half pint good brandy sim- 
mer it well & is fit for use.' . . . His directions 
to his patients were usually given in about the 
same formula, and have a suggestion of con- 
stant use of the gun, as well as plenty of shot. 
He would say : ' Take a Httle of this ere and a 
little of that air, put it in a jug before the fire, 
stir it up with your little finger, and take it 
when you are warm, hot, cold, or feverish.' " 

Doctor Ball was a strong beHever in the mind 
as a help or hindrance to recovery, as in his 
youth, he had been made almost ill by being told 
that the perfectly good beef on which he was 
dining was horse-meat. 

'* Not long after this," he tells us, ** I at- 
tended a Patient a yong man about 18 or 19 
years old, in another town, sick with the scar- 
let-fever and throat distemper (Scarlatina Angi- 
nosa). I revisited him on Sunday morning. I 
told him he was better, his disorder had turned, 
he was going well. I saw nothing butt that he 
might recover soon. I had business further 
along, and on my return, about sunset, I called 
again and beheld the family and neighbors ware 
standing around in a large room, seeing the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 127 

patient die. I spoke to his mother, and asked 
her what was the matter. O said she Joel is 
worse. I then turned to my Pupil and sayes 
what can this mean. He said I dont know. 
I am shure he says he was going well when we 
were here in the morning. 

*' I then turned again to his mother and asked 
her what had taken place. O, she said, Joel 
has been growing worse ever since you left in 
the morning, she said the Minister called soon 
after I left, and he said he might live till night, 
but could not probably live till tomorrow 
morning, and she thought it her duty to let her 
son know the near approach of death. I went 
to the bed-side and I veriyly thought him to 
be a dicing, he had a deathly pult (subsutus 
tendinum) spasmodick affection of the face 
and jaws, indeede the whole system was gen- 
erally convulsed. I thought of the horse-beefe. 
I sayes to him Joel, I guess I can give you some- 
thing that will help you. I perceived he had his 
senses, but I beleave he could not speak." He 
could swallow however, and when plied with 
cordial and with hope by the old doctor, was 
quickly pulled back from what had bidden fair 
to be a death from fright. 

Newport, Rhode Island, was the cradle of 
the first medical course in the country, and 
many celebrated physicians and surgeons lived 
and practiced within the boundaries of the old 



128 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

town. Newport was, indeed, founded by a 
physician named John Clarke, who united 
with Roger Wilhams in obtaining from Charles 
II a charter conferring greater civil and re- 
ligious privileges than had been granted to any 
other province. Wilham Hunter and Thomas 
Moffat, both graduates of the famous Edin- 
burgh University of Medicine, came to New- 
port about 1750, and there, during 1754, 1755, 
and 1756, Doctor Hunter gave the first course 
of medical lectures ever dehvered in America. 
Many youths came from the other colonies to 
profit by these lectures and, had not the dis- 
turbances of the Revolution broken up the 
school, Rhode Island would have attained great 
distinction at an early date as a source of medi- 
cal instruction. Doctor Hunter had the largest 
medical library in New England, a portion of 
which was given by his son, the Honorable 
William Hunter, to Brown University. An- 
other early Newport physician was Doctor 
Vigneron, who reached the province about 1690, 
lived to be ninety -five, and was the father of so 
large a family that it was often laughingly said 
of him that he peopled the town. William Vi- 
gneron Taylor, one of his descendants, was a 
lieutenant on Oliver Hazard Perry's ship at 
the battle of Lake Erie. The father of Cap- 
tain Perry's wife, Doctor Benjamin Mason, also 
studied medicine in Europe and was a promi- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 129 

nent member of the profession in Rhode Is- 
land. 

Newport is justly proud of its progressive 
spirit in matters relating to health. Doctor 
Waterhouse has pointed out that while Boston 
was pelting Doctor Boylston with stones as 
he passed in the streets and breaking his win- 
dows for introducing inoculation for smallpox, 
Rhode Island was inoculating patients without 
opposition and getting ready to set up (in 1798) 
what was then a very great novelty, a Board of 
Health. The example of Newport in this mat- 
ter of legislating for health was not followed in 
any other locality for many years. 

Windsor, Connecticut, had several early phy- 
sicians of great skill and reputation, among 
them Doctor Alexander Wolcott, son of Gov- 
ernor Roger Wolcott and great-grandson of Mr. 
Henry Wolcott, the Pilgrim. Doctor Wolcott 
was graduated from Yale College in 1731 and 
studied medicine under Doctor Norman Morri- 
son of Hartford. At Louisburg and during the 
Revolutionary War, Doctor Wolcott contributed 
notably to the success of the patriot cause. 

Not so did Doctor Elihu Tudor of this same 
town. Doctor Tudor was graduated from Yale 
in 1750, studied medicine under Doctor Benja- 
miin Gale of Killingsworth, and became an ex- 
cellent and a successful physician. It did not 
help his practice in Windsor that at the out- 



130 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

break of the Revolution he was gravely sus- 
pected of being favorable to the British gov- 
ernment. It was related of him that he used to 
have two teapots, one of which was filled with 
sage tea and the other with real tea — which 
could be used according to the company he had 
at his table. By virtue of his service during 
the French and Indian War, he became a pen- 
sioner of the British government; but when 
1825 dawned, and he was still living and draw- 
ing his annuity, — being then over ninety years 
old, — an agent of the mother country was sent 
over to see " whether the old cuss was really 
alive." ^ Doctor Tudor was in his day the best 
surgeon in New England, in recognition of 
which Dartmouth College, despite his politics, 
conferred upon him, in 1790, the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine. 

Windsor can boast, also, of a doctor who 
had been a slave, one Primus, who as the body- 
servant of Doctor Wolcott had assisted for so 
many years in the preparation of medicines 
that he felt quite competent, when given his 
freedom, to practice by himself the " art and 
mystery " of a physician. On one occasion, 
being sent for to visit a sick child in West 
Windsor, he obeyed the summons and on his 
way home rapped at the door of his old master. 
When Doctor Wolcott came to see what was 

^ Stiles' " History of Windsor, Connecticut." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 131 

wanted, the negro said: " I just called to say 
that that is a very simple case over there, and 
that I told the child's mother she need not 
have sent so far for a doctor — that you would 
have done just as well as any one else." 

Connecticut physicians seem to have at-* 
tained considerable esprit de corps by the end 
of the eighteenth century. In the Connecticut 
Courunt of 1784, I find, under date of July 13, 
a notice to the effect that a meeting of their 
body will be held on August 2 at the house of 
Mr. David Buel, Litchfield. Possibly this 
meeting was called to cope with such abuses as 
must have followed this advertisement, to be 
found in the same paper some four years earlier : 

" Just Published 

" And to be sold by the Printers hereof 

" A new edition, neatly bound of Domestic 
Medicine: Or the Family Physician: Being an 
Attempt to render the Medical Art more gen- 
erally useful by showing people what is in 
their own Power, both with respect to the Pre- 
vention and Cure of Diseases. ..." 

A very distinguished Boston physician at 
the time of the Revolution was Doctor James 
Lloyd, who was born March 14, 1728, and 
died in 1810. He was a close friend of Sir Will- 



132 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

iam Howe and of Earl Percy, the latter living 
for a time, while in Boston, at his house. In 
religion Doctor Lloyd was an Episcopalian, — 
one of those who protested vigorously against 
the alteration of the liturgy at King's Chapel. 
•But though the American government knew 
him to be a Tory, he was never molested, and 
for many years after the Revolution continued 
to be one of Boston's most popular physicians. 
One of the most high-priced, also! For he 
charged the exorbitant fee of half a dollar a 
visit, where most of the city doctors were glad 
to come as often as they were called for a shil- 
ling and sixpence. Anna Green Winslow speaks 
in her diary of his " bringing little master to 
town" in 1771; for this service his charge 
would have been a guinea, inasmuch as he was 
a specialist in " baby cases." 

Most of the early physicians were shockingly 
underpaid.^ In Hadley and in Northampton, 
Massachusetts, they received but sixpence a 
visit in 1730, and their fee had risen no higher 
than eightpence by Revolutionary days. A 
blood-letting or the extraction of a tooth by 
the agonizing method then in vogue cost the 

^ In Boston, prior to 1782, the regular doctor's fee was from one 
shilling sixpence, to two shillings, the latter charge being made only 
to " such as were in high life." Later a club of leading physicians 
fixed the common fee at fifty cents, permitting one dollar to be 
charged for a visit made in consultation, double rates for night calls, 
and a fee of six dollars for midwifery. See Massachusetts Historical 
Society Proceedings for 18G3. 




DR. JAMES LLOYD. 




JAMES OTIS. 

After the painting by Chappel. 

See p. 136. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 133 

sufferer eightpence extra. The medicines given 
by these early doctors were exceedingly power- 
ful and were Hkely to contain a great deal of 
mercury. Hence the very early decay of the 
teeth, a universal complaint which made possi- 
ble such an advertisement as the following in 
the Boston Evening Post of September 26, 1768: 

" Whereas many Persons are so unfortunate 
as to lose their Fore Teeth by Accident or 
Otherways to their great Detriment not only 
in looks but in speaking both in public and 
private. This is to inform all such that they 
can have them replaced with Artificial Ones 
that look as well as the Natural and answer the 
End of Speaking by Paul Revere Goldsmith 
near the head of Dr. Clarkes wharf. All Per- 
sons who have had false Teeth Fixed by Mr. 
Jos. Baker Surgeon Dentist and They have 
got loose as they will in Time may have them 
fastened by above said Revere who lernt the 
method of fixing them from Mr. Baker." 

The teeth in which Paul Revere dealt were 
frankly artificial; his advertisement is not 
nearly so gruesome, therefore, as this from the 
Connecticut Courant of August 17, 1795: "A 
generous price paid for Human Front Teeth 
perfectly sound, by Dr. Skinner." Appar- 
ently this " doctor " did not shrink, when duty 
called, from the very disagreeable task of ''in- 
grafting " teeth, a practice then much in vogue. 



134 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

by which *' hve teeth *' were inserted in the 
mouths of those able to pay for them, — and 
willing to wear them. 

None of the professions was quite so slow in 
becoming standardized as that of the physician. 
That practitioners of medicine were not uni- 
versally recognized as professional men, even 
as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, 
is clear from the ranking given in the college 
catalogues to doctors' sons. Thus Clement 
Sumner, son of a reputable physician, is placed 
number thirty in the Yale College catalogue 
of 1788; this, too, where there were only forty- 
three students in the whole class. The truth 
is that a very large number of quack doctors 
were abroad in the land, and no simple method 
had yet been found of distinguishing good 
men from charlatans. In the Old Farmer's Al- 
manack for 1806, we find Mr. Thomas writing: 
*' There are a great many asses without long 
ears. Quack, Quack, went the ducks, as Doc- 
tor Motherwort rode by with his saddle-bags 
stuffed with maiden-hair and golden-rod. Don't 
let your wife send Tommy to the academy six 
weeks and make a novice of him." 

And in the 1813 issue of this same famous 
publication, there is a drastic description of 
" the famous Dr. Dolt ": "A larnt man is the 
doctor. Once he was a simple knight of the 
lapstone and pegging awl; but now he is blaz- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 135 

oned in the first orders of quack heraldry. 
The mighty cures of the doctor are known far 
round. He is always sure to kill the disorder, 
although in effecting this he sometimes kills 
the patient." 

Against lawyers the useful Mr. Thomas also 
inveighed; and there was need of it. For in 
many country towns there was a perfect pest 
of men who battened on the quarrelsomeness of 
their neighbors. John Adams, in 1760, speaks 
of " the multiplicity of pettifoggers " in Brain- 
tree, a town which had become proverbial for 
litigation, and specifies one " Captain H." 
who, he says, " has given out that he is a sworn 
attorney till nine-tenths of this town really 
believe it." Henry Wansey, who traveled 
through New England in 1794, wrote that 
*' the best houses in Connecticut are inhabited 
by lawyers." Verily a great change had come 
about since the days when Thomas Lechford 
found it so hard to practice his profession in 
Boston that he was constrained to warn the 
colonists not to " despise learning, nor the 
worthy lawyers of either gown (civil or eccle- 
siastical) lest you repent too late." ^ 

Driven from England for engaging in the 
trial of the great Prynne, Lechford arrived in 
Boston in 1638 and began to keep that " Note- 
Book " by means of which many facts of great 

1 " Plaine Dealing," 1642, p. 28. 



136 



SOCIAL LIFE IN 



value have been added to our knowledge of 
old New England. But he soon became a 
'persona non grata in the colonies. It was the 
policy of the clergy to suppress the study of 
law ^ in order that their own importance and 
power should in no way be curtailed. A civil 
magistrate was thought to need no special 
training in order to perform his duty properly, 
and a judge was expected to take his law from 
those who expounded the Word of God. S tough- 
ton, the first chief justice in Massachusetts, 
who was appointed by Phips, probably at the 
instigation of Increase Mather, had been bred 
for the church and had absolutely no training 
in law. And Sewall, as we know, was much 
more a minister and a merchant than a lawyer. 
Naturally, there was no place in such a social 
scheme for lawyers and law-students. 

Yet in 1725 Jeremiah Gridley graduated 
from Harvard, and he, as Brooks Adams points 
out,^ may be fairly said to have been the pro- 
genitor of a famous race. For " long before 
the Revolution, men like Prat, Otis and John 
Adams could well have held their own before 
any court of Common Law that ever sat." 

No longer now must accused persons be 
condemned, as were the witches, undefended 
by those skilled in argument and in the presen- 

1 Connecticut, in 1730, limited to eleven the number of lawyers 
for that whole colony. 

2 In " The Emancipation of Massachusetts." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 137 

tation of a case. When, at the time of the 
Boston Massacre, Captain Preston and his 
men were indicted for murder, John Adams 
and Josiah Quincy, though heart and soul de- 
voted to the cause of the people, unhesitatingly 
accepted their defense, with the result that, in 
spite of popular sentiment against them, Pres- 
ton and his men were patiently tried according 
to the law and the evidence. All that skill, 
learning, and courage could do for them was 
done and an impartial court brought in a ver- 
dict of Not Guilty. The law as a profession 
during this trial came into its own. 

Next to the three learned professions should 
come that of the teacher; but this vocation 
was not at all highly regarded, if we may judge 
from the rank assigned to schoolmasters' sons 
in the college catalogues of early days. Henry 
Rust, son of a schoolmaster in Ipswich, Massa- 
chusetts, stands last in the class of 1707 at Har- 
vard! Of school-teaching, as of doctoring, it 
was true at this time that the profession had 
not become standardized. 

Inn-keeping, on the contrary, was a most 
respectable occupation. In several of the early 
college catalogues sons of innkeepers may be 
found taking precedence of ministers' sons! 
This was because an innkeeper had to be as 
moral as a minister and possess property be- 
sides. What was required of a landlord in 



138 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

those early days is shown by the bond of Colonel 
Thomas Howe, who kept a public house in 
Marlborough in 1696. This instrument stipu- 
lates that " he shall not suffer to have any 
playing at cards, dice, tally, bowls, ninepins, 
billiards, or any other unlawful game or games 
in his said house, or yard or gardens or back- 
side, nor shall suffer to remain in his house 
any person or persons, not being his own family, 
on Saturday night after dark, or on the Sab- 
bath days, or during the time of God's Public 
Worship; nor shall he entertain as lodgers in 
his house any strangers men or women, above 
the space of forty -eight hours, but such whose 
names and surnames he shall deliver to one 
of the selectmen or constables of the town, 
unless they shall be such as he very well know- 
eth, and will ensure for his or their forthcoming 
— nor shall sell any wine to the Indians or ne- 
groes, nor suffer any children or servant, or 
other person to remain in his house, tippling 
or drinking after nine o'clock in the night — 
nor shall buy or take to preserve any stolen 
goods, nor willingly or knowingly harbor in 
his house, barn, stable or otherwhere, any 
rogues, vagabonds, thieves, sturdy beggars, 
masterless men and women, or other notori- 
ous offenders whatsoever — nor shall any per- 
son or persons whatsoever, sell or utter any 
wine, beer, ale, cider, rum, brandy, or other 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 139 

liquors by defaulting or by color of his license — . 
nor shall entertain any person or persons to 
whom he shall be prohibited by law, or by any 
one of the magistrates of the county, as per- 
sons of jolly conversation or given to tippling." 

Thus it will be seen that tavern-keepers of 
the early days were, of necessity, persons of 
conscience and quality. Nearly all of them 
had a military title, and that in a day when 
titles meant something. The yeoman in old 
New England was called " goodman ", and his 
spouse was a " goodwife." The great majority 
of the colonists were addressed as " Goodman ", 
only one freeman in fourteen, in the Massa- 
chusetts of 1649, having the title of " Mr.", 
which originally meant that the person thus 
designated was a college graduate. The wife 
and daughter of a Master of Arts, or a Mr., be- 
came Mistress or " Mrs." Not until after 1720 
was " Miss " used to indicate any young female. 

The Revolution necessarily did away with 
finely drawn class distinctions. Such social 
classifications as the old regime fostered were 
bound to break down when a Franklin was 
the son of a tallow-chandler. The distinc- 
tion of the " gentleman " was charily recog- 
nized now; that John Adams used the term oc- 
casionally after the Revolution has been made 
a matter of repeated comment. 

Printing, which led then as it often does to- 




THE LAST OF THE FARAl Bu\ 



r<.i..\ nglit 1904 by Wallace Nutting. 
AND HLS PAIR OF OXEN. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 141 

from astrology, but most earlier almanac- 
makers were less scrupulous, and many a man 
with more cleverness than conscience battened 
through this medium on the credibility of the 
reading public. In the diary of President 
Stiles of Yale College, there is a casual refer- 
ence to one of these men when, under date of 
June 13, 1773, he mentions, as lately dead, 
" Mr. Stafford of Tiverton ", who *' was wont 
to tell where lost things might be found, and 
what day, hour, and minute was fortunate for 
vessels to sail." 

When a youth wanted to be an artist, he 
was discouraged violently. William Kneeland, 
Harvard tutor, wrote Governor Trumbull about 
his son: *' I find he has a natural genius and 
disposition for limning. As a knowledge of 
that art will probably be of no use to him I 
submit to your consideration whether it would 
not be best to give him a turn to the study of 
perspective, a branch of mathematics the knowl- 
edge of which will at least be a genteel accom- 
plishment." 

The farmer's son adopted, quite naturally, 
the work of his father. And the same thing 
was frequently true of the sons of men in the 
various trades. Benjamin Franklin had hard 
work to avoid becoming a tallow-chandler — 
like his father. Blacksmiths were long in great 
demand, and special inducements were often 



142 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

held out to young men to adopt this caUing. 
For blacksmiths made nails as well as shod 
horses. " Nailer Tom ", as Thomas B. Hazard, 
who lived in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, the 
latter part of the eighteenth century, was 
called — to distinguish him from the various 
other Tom Hazards of his time — was an ex- 
ceedingly interesting character. 

The term of an apprentice in these and 
allied trades was generally for seven years. 
From the indenture of an apprentice to whom 
Samuel Williams and wife of Roxbury en- 
gaged, about 1678, to teach the " art, trade, 
mistry and science " of shoemaking, we read, 
after the enumeration of conditions almost 
identical with those required of the lad who 
was learning to be a doctor : " and at the end 
of six years they will give their said apprentice 
doubell apparell, one suit for the Lord's day 
and one suit for the working days neet an 
comely for one of his degree and calling." 

In the seaboard towns the trade of " mar- 
riner " was naturally of strong appeal. The 
apprentice term in this calling was four years, 
and the wages of seamen were unusually good. 
A captain ordinarily got about six pounds a 
month, the chief mate four pounds, and the 
men from £l 15s. to £2 15s. a month. No 
wonder lads ran away to sea, when they could 
have adventure and such alluring wages as 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 143 

this at the end of four years, while a gold- 
smith's apprentice, in 1644, had to promise to 
serve twelve years for meat, drink, and ap- 
parel only, and receive at the end of his term 
the meager sum of three pounds.^ 

One interesting New England industry, 
which disappeared when the coming of the 
railroad brought western competition to our 
doors, was the raising of " stall-fed oxen " for 
the city market. No beef brought higher prices 
on the foot than that driven from the barn- 
yards of old Deerfield Street, and the passing of 
this business and of the farm boy who lived by 
it makes a very interesting story ^ as told by 
Deerfield's historian, George Sheldon. In 
early days it was an unheard-of thing for oxen 
to be " sent to market " which had not been 
through a course of stall-feeding in some of 
the valley towns. Stall-feeding grew to be 
an exact science; the whole winter was '* de- 
voted " — and Mr. Sheldon insists that he 
uses this word advisedly — to the care of the 
stock, which had been acquired in the fall at 
one of the hill towns on the west or north. 
" Nothing was allowed to interfere with the 
regular program of the day. For it was a 
cardinal doctrine of the feeders that the more 
comfortable and happy the animals were made 

1 Weedon, p. 880. 

2 " 'Tis Sixty Years Since." Pocumtuck Valley Memorial As- 
sociation, 1898. 



144 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

the better the results." Naturally this gave 
the farm boy plenty to do. For, after the oxen 
had been carefully mated, their quarters had 
to be kept scrupulously clean, and feed, drink, 
air, and exercise had to be provided for them 
with undeviating regularity. 

The great moment for the farm boy came, 
however, with the Monday morning journey 
to Brighton. Often this spring expedition 
Boston-wards was the country lad's first ven- 
ture into the outside world, and, though he 
got little or no pay beyond his expenses on the 
road as he helped drive the cattle to their fate, 
there was great eagerness to obtain this peep 
into the great beyond. Tearful mothers, as 
well as envious young brothers, hung out of 
the windows as the lads and their charges set 
forth from home under the care of an experi- 
enced drover, with their baggage stowed away 
in leather portmanteaus, strapped behind the 
horns of some of the leaders of the drove, where 
it was safe from molestation. " Wonderful 
were the stories with which the travelers re- 
galed the ears of their envious companions on 
their return in state by stage coach. These 
narratives generally bore fruit the next spring 
in new batches of pilgrims; and, incidentally, 
these trips to the city often led to ambitious 
aspirations, to permanent migrations — and a 
resultant loss to the valley." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 145 



CHAPTER IV 



" 'tending meetin' " 



THERE might, or might not be, a school- 
house in the early New England villages. 
But a meeting-house there was almost 
certain to be. Scarcely had the Pilgrims landed 
at Plymouth, when it was decided that wor- 
ship should be held in their '* timber fort both 
strong and comely, with flat roof and battle- 
ments." To this fort every Sunday the men 
and women made their way, three in a row, 
until they built their first " meeting-house " 
in 1648. They were very particular about 
calling it a meeting-house, too, and so, I sup- 
pose, must we be. Cotton Mather has defended 
the stand they took in this matter by declaring 
that he " found no just ground in Scripture to 
apply such a trope as church to a house for 
public assembly "; and he opposed as vigor- 
ously the tendency to call after the name of the 
congregation who worshipped in the meeting- 
house the meeting-house in which they wor- 
shipped, as he did the even more insidious in- 
clination to call the Sabbath Sunday. 



146 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

In 1075 it was enacted that a meeting-house 
should be erected in every town in the colony; 
in most places, as in Plymouth, these first 
houses for the worship of God were very rude 
affairs. And very tiny, too! The first meeting- 
house in Dedham was thirty-six feet long, 
twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high " in the 
stud "; the one in Medford was smaller still, 
while Haverhill had an edifice only twenty- 
six feet long and twenty feet wide. 

The " Old Ship " at Hingham, built in 1681, 
represents the best example still in existence 
of the second form or type of American church 
architecture; square meeting-houses of this 
kind soon abounded in New England. The 
third type, and that to which we all cling most 
lovingly, is exemplified in the Old South Church 
of Boston. Many similar structures, though 
built of wood instead of brick, crown our New 
England hilltops to this day. 

The reason why the meeting-house was so 
often built on a hill was because it was highly 
valued as a guide for travelers making their 
way through the woods and, in seacoast towns, 
as a mark for sailors. It was also used as a 
watch-house, from which the approach of hos- 
tile Indians could be discerned. The danger of 
Sunday attacks from the Indians was a very 
real one in the seventeenth century. The 
church in York, Maine, found it necessary. 




S ^ 







v--- 



Tlii^ Evening, 

The Tenth . t" /\, ,,v,'.r, at Sk o' Clock, the 

N E W 

ORGAN, 

At King's Church, will be 
playU^n by Mr. Flaog. 

A Number of Gciulcmcn belonging to the Town 
will ^.iTil\ on the Oecafinn, and perform the vocal 
Parts. A S E R M O N, on the Lawfulnefs, Ex- 
I cellcncy and Advantage of Isstrumkntal Music in p\ib- 
I lie VVorChip, will be preached by the Reverend JOHN 
CRAVES, after which a Collc<f\ion will be made to 
I defray the Expencc of bringing the ORGAN from 
^'^—^.^^''^ and lixiiis: it ill die Cliurdw .« . , w..-^,^.- ,J 

'' Praife him with RG A N S:\'-Vk\m c\/^ 



I. 

f 









.^fc^^^^ ;.L^- ^.:..-..^il^ 



^.c^.'--'^ 



ANNOUxNCEMENT OF THE INSTALLATION OF A NEW ORGAN AT KING'S 

CHURCH, PROVIDENCE, IN 1771. 

The original is in the John Carter Brown Library. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 147 

indeed, to retain until 1746 the custom of car- 
rying arms to the meeting-house, to guard 
against raids from the Indians all about them. 

No better description of " publique worship " 
in a large town in the very early days of the 
colony can be found than that given us by 
Thomas Lechford, the first Boston lawyer, in 
his " Plaine dealing or Newes from New-Eng- 
land." 

" Every Sabbath or Lord's Day they come 
together at Boston by wringing of a bell, about 
nine of the clock or before. The Pastor begins 
with solemn prayer continuing about a quarter 
of an hour. The Teacher then readeth and ex- 
poundeth a chapter; Then a Psalme is sung 
whichever one the ruling Elder dictates. After 
that the Pastor preacheth a Sermon, and some- 
times extempore exhorts. Then the Teacher 
continues with a prayer and a blessing. About 
two in the afternoone they repair to the meet- 
ing-house againe; and the pastor begins, as 
before noone, and a Psalm being sung, the 
Teacher makes a Sermon. He was wont, when 
I came first, to reade and expound a Chapter also 
before his Sermon in the afternoon. After 
and before his Sermon he prayed. After that 
ensueth Baptisme, if there be any, which is 
done by either Pastor or Teacher, in the Dea- 
con's seate, the most eminent place in the 
Church, next under the Elders seate. The 



148 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Pastor most commonly makes a speech or ex- 
hortation to the Church and parents concern- 
ing Baptisme, and then prayeth before and 
after. It is done by washing or sprinkHng. 
One of the parents being of the church the 
child may be baptized. . . . No sureties are re- 
quired. 

" Which ended follows the contribution, one 
of the Deacons saying Brethren of the congre- 
gation, now there is time left for contribution, 
wherefore as God hath prospered you so freely 
offer. Upon some extraordinary occasions, as 
building and repairing of Churches and meet- 
ing-houses or other necessities, the Ministers 
presse a liberall contribution, with effectual 
exhortations out of Scripture. The Magis- 
trates, and chief e gentlemen first, and then 
the Elders, and all the congregation of men, 
and most of them that are not of the Church, 
all single persons, widows, and women in the 
absence of their husbands come up one after 
another one way, and bring their offerings to 
the Deacon at his seate, and put it into a box 
of wood for the purpose, if it be money or pa- 
pers; if it be any other chattle, they set it or 
lay it downe before the deacons, and so passe 
another way to their seats again." 

The external aspect of a typical country 
meeting-house of the third type is still familiar 
to us, for there are many survivals in the New 



/ 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 149 

England of to-day. Occasionally, too, there 
may be found a structure in which the large 
square pews, the high pulpit with sounding- 
board above it and deacon's seat below (con- 
veniently near the adjustable shelf which served 
for a communion table) have not yet given 
place to modern equipment. The choir in such 
a meeting-house was seated in the middle gal- 
lery, and over the singers there ruled, in days of 
yore, a chorister who " set the tune " for the 
different parts by the aid of a wooden pitch- 
pipe. This pitch-pipe remained in use until 
the tuning-fork was invented. Then came 
successively a bassoon in the church and a 
bass-viol in the_meeting-house, until organs 
supplanted both. 

A considerable number of years, however, 
is covered in this very brief summary of the 
history of church music in New England. For 
though " the first organ that ever pealed to the 
glory of God in this country " was imported 
from London in 1713 by Mr. Thomas Brattle, 
one of the founders of the old Brattle Street 
Church in Boston, organs did not come into 
general use until a much later day. One rea- 
son for this lay in the fact that few people could 
play this instrument. The Brattle organ, left 
at the death of its donor to the Brattle Street 
Church, *' if they shall accept thereof and 
within a year after my decease procure a sober 



150 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

person that can play skilfully thereon with a 
loud noise ", became the property of King's 
Chapel, because this condition of a skilful 
player was not duly met. 

Only after a long struggle was it conceded that 
organ music was not sacrilegious. The Scotch 
had called the organ a " kist of whistles ", and 
the Puritan named this instrument the " devil's 
bagpipes." The use of organs had be^n sternly 
prohibited during the Puritan reign in Eng- 
land, and it is not at all surprising, therefore, 
that Cotton Mather should have queried, 
in his " Magnalia ", whether " such music may 
be lawfully introduced in the worship of God 
in the churches of the New World." He could 
find no New Testament authority, he declared, 
for countenancing the organ, and he added: 
"If we admit instrumental music in the wor- 
ship of God how can we resist the imposition 
of all the instruments used among the ancient 
Jews? Yea, dancing as well as playing ! " 

In this matter of condemning church organs, 
if in no other, Cotton Mather and that stanch 
Baptist, Nicholas Brown, would have found 
themselves in heartiest agreement. There is 
preserved in the John Carter Brown Library 
a copy of an invitation sent out by King's 
Church, Providence, on the occasion of the 
installation of its new organ, and on this broad- 
side, below the printed quotation, " Praise 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 151 

him with organs '*, may be found, written in 
Mr. Brown's hand: " Praise him with dancing 
and the Stringed Instruments." This Episco- 
pal organ was the second in Providence — the 
Providence Congregational Church had ac- 
quired one the previous year — and Mr. Brown 
evidently felt that the time had come to " take 
a stand." Doctor Stiles records with obvious 
pride that the Congregational instrument pos- 
sessed two hundred pipes and was the " first 
organ in a dissenting Chh. in America except 
Jersey [Princeton] College. . . . Mr. West has 
exercised himself upon it a month in learning 
to play." To the service in which the Episco- 
pal organ was " play'd on by Mr. Flagg ", 
Stiles alludes as the " Consecration of the 
Organ ", adding: " This organ was taken from 
the Concert-Hall in Boston — from being em- 
ployed in promoting Festivity, Merriment, Ef- 
feminacy, Luxury, and Midnight Revellings — 
to be used in the Worship of God." 

/ When the violoncello, which the organ seemed 
bound to displace, had been introduced into 
New England, precisely the same objections 
had been raised as were now used against tlie 
introduction of the organ. They were the first 
musical instruments allowed in our churches, 
and there is a story that when one of them was 
twanged for the first time in the first Baptist 
Church at Providence, a mother in Israel 



152 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

swung open her pew door, caught up her petti- 
coat between thumb and finger, and capered 
down the aisle, chanting rhythmically: 

" If they are a-goin' to fiddle 
I am a-goin' to dance! " \ 

The organ, whose music is really churchly 
and reverent, soon made its way in spite of 
opposition. And whereas, in 1730, the Harvard 
Commencement thesis: "Do organs excite a 
devotional spirit in divine worship ? " was 
answered in the negative, by 1762 the question: 
" Does music promote salvation? " won an en- 
thusiastic affirmative in this same high quarter. 
And by music was meant organ music. It had 
by this time been discovered that the organ 
helped enormously in the singing of the Psalms, 
long a highly important feature of New England 
worship. 

The very first book printed in New England 
had been the " Bay Psalm-Book ", now the 
rarest of all Americana, and, in some ways, the 
most interesting. Richard Mather, Thomas 
Welde, and John Eliot had collaborated in the 
text of this volume, and President Dunster of 
Harvard College had promptly put their verses 
into type upon a " printery " which cost fifty 
pounds and had been the gift of friends in Hol- 
land to the new community in 1638. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 153 

Cotton Mather, in his " Magnaha," relates 
with evident appreciation the history of this 
epoch-making book: 

" About the year 1639, the New-Enghsh re- 
formers, considering that their churches enjoyed 
the other ordinances of Heaven in their scrip- 
tural purity, were willing that ' The singing of 
Psalms ' should be restored among them unto 
a share of that 'purity. Though they blessed 
God for the religious endeavors of them who 
translated the Psalms into the meetre usually 
annexed at the end of the Bible, yet they be- 
held in the translation so many detractions from, 
additions to, and variations of, not only the text, 
but the sense of the psalmist that it was an 
offense unto them. 

" Resolving then upon a new translation, 
the chief divines in the country took each of 
them a portion to be translated; among whom 
were Mr. Welde and Mr. Eliot of Roxbury, 
and Mr. Mather of Dorchester. These, like 
the rest, were so very different a genius for 
their poetry that Mr. Shephard, of Cambridge, 
in the occasion addressed them to this pur- 
pose: 

*' You Roxb'ry poets keep clear of the crime 
Of missing to give us a very good rhime. 
And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen 
And with the text's own words, you will them 
strengthen. 



154 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

*' The Psalms thus turned into meetre were 
printed at Cambridge in the year 1640. But 
afterwards it was thought that a httle more of 
art was to be employed upon them ; and for that 
cause they were committed unto Mr. Dunster, 
who revised and refined this translation; and 
(with some assistance from Mr. Richard Lyon 
who, being sent over by Sir Henry Mildmay 
as an attendant unto his son, then a student 
at Harvard College, now resided in Mr. Dun- 
ster's house:) he brought it into the condition 
wherein our churches have since used it. Now 
though I heartily join with these gentlemen 
who wish that the poetry thereof were mended, 
yet I must confess, that the Psalms have never 
yet seen a translation that I know of nearer to 
the Hebrew original; and I am willing to re- 
ceive the excuse which our translators them- 
selves do offer us when they say: ' If the verses 
are not always so elegant as some desire or ex- 
pect, let them consider that God's altar needs not 
our pollishings ; we have respected rather a plain 
translation, than to smooth our verses with the 
sweetness of any paraphrase. We have at- 
tended conscience rather than elegance, fidel- 
ity rather than ingenuity, that so we may sing 
in Zion the Lord's songs of praise, according 
unto his own will, until he bid us enter into our 
Master's joy to sing eternal hallelujahs.' " 

If Cotton Mather had exercised the same 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 155 

judicial mind and Christian charity when deal- 
ing with the witches as when dealing with the 
labors of his brother-ministers, his name would 
not to-day be anathema. The " Bay Psalm- 
Book ", no less than the witches, needed to 
be gently dealt with, however, for in place of 
the dignified rendering which the English Bible 
had given the Psalms of David, there appeared 
from the hands of the New England translators 
such verses as these: 

" Likewise the heavens he down-bow'd 
and he descended, & there was 
under his feet a gloomy cloud 

And he on cherub rode and flew; 
yea, he flew on the wings of winde. 

His secret place hee darkness made 
his covert that him round confinde." 

Reverend Elias Nason wittily says of this 
triumph in collaboration, " Welde, Eliot and 
Mather mounted the restive steed Pegasus, 
Hebrew psalter in hand, and trotted in warm 
haste over the rough roads of Shemitic roots 
and metrical psalmody. Other divines rode 
behind, and after cutting and slashing, mending 
and patching, twisting and turning, finally 
produced what must ever remain the most 
unique specimen of poetical tinkering in our 
literature." 

Judge Sewall, however, valued the " Bay 



156 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Psalm -Book " highly and was always making 
a present of it to ladies whom he admired. He 
bought one, " bound neatly in Kids Leather ", 
for " 3 shillings & sixpence ", deeming it a 
cheap and appropriate gift for one of the widows 
he was wooing. A copy of the first edition 
would now be worth several hundred dollars. 
The one owned by the American Antiquarian 
Society of Worcester bears on the inside of 
its front cover this statement, in the clear 
and beautiful handwriting of Isaiah Thomas: 
" After advertising for another copy of this 
book and making enquiry in many places in 
New England &c. I was not able to obtain or 
even hear of another. This copy is therefore 
invaluable and must be preserved with the 
greatest care. Isaiah Thomas, Sep. 20, 1820." 
To the atrocities of the " Bay Psalm-Book " 
was doubtless due, in large measure, the execra- 
ble singing which the organ came to mitigate. 
The 1698 edition of the " Psalm-Book " had 
in its last pages " Some few directions " re- 
garding the musical rendering of its Psalms, 
but Judge Sewall, to whose lot it often fell to 
" set the tune " in the Old South Meeting- 
house, had often to record in his diary his utter 
failure in the performance of this important 
rite. Here is the pathetic entry concerning 
one of his mistakes: "He spake to me to set 
the tune. I intended Windsor and fell into 



■■ipipilRiiMPPii 

PSALMECnx.CxT,&c 

for thy commandments chofe have I« 
i'74 I long for thy falvation, i^oicb 
and my delights in thy law ly. 
x75 L et my foule live, & (hew thy pray fe: 

help mec alio thy judgements let. 
j76 Like loft fhcepftrayd, thy fervanc feckct 
for I rby laws doc not forget 
Plalme i a o. 
A fong of degrees. 

VNto the Lord, ix\ my diftrcffe 
I cry*d, & he beard mce. 
A From lying lipps&guilcfull tongue, 

o Lord, my foule fct free. 
i Wliatfhall thy falfe tongue give to thecv 

or what on thee confer? 
* Sharp arrows of the mighty ones, 

with coilcs of juniper. 
f Woe's mee, rhit I in Mcfech doo 
a fojounicr remaine: 
that I cioe d.vcll in tents, which doc 
to Kedar appcrtaine. 
6 1-ong rime my foule hath dwelt with him 
that peace doth mudi abhorrc, 
I am tor peace, but when I ipeake^ 
they ready arc for vrarre. 
/^alme 121. 
A fcrng of degrees. 

I To the bills lift up mine eyes, 
from whence fhall come mine aid* 
2 Mine help doth from lehovah comc^ 
which [leav'Q^ earth hath made. 



A PAGE OF THE OLD BAY PSALM BOOK. 

From a first edition copy in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society, 

Worcester, Mass. 




THE ORGAN UPON WHICH OLIVER HOLDEN HARMONIZED 
" CORONATION." 

See p. 160. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 157 

High Dutch, and then essaying to set another 
tune went into a Key much too high. So 1 pray'd 
to Mr. White to set it which he did well. Litch- 
field Tune. The Lord Humble me and In- 
struct me that I should be the occasion of any 
interruption in the worship of God." 

Of course, the appalling length of many of 
the Psalms was one insuperable barrier to their 
successful performance. Some of them were 
one hundred and thirty lines long, and, when 
lined and sung, consumed a full half -hour — 
during which the congregation stood. A parson 
who had forgotten to bring his sermon to meet- 
ing with him, could give out a long Psalm and 
go comfortably home and back before the 
congregation had finished singing. Gradually, 
the " hning " of the Psalms — reading them 
off, that is, line by line, for the benefit of those 
who " wanted books and skill to read " — 
was realized to be one reason why the singing 
was so bad and, after long and bitter con- 
troversy, this practice was abandoned. Then 
there came another fierce battle over the de- 
mand that the singing should be by note. In 
the New Englarid Chronicle of 1723, we find 
the conservatives' objection to this innova- 
tion voiced as follows: " Truly I have a great 
jealousy that if we begin to sing by rule, the 
next thing will be to pray by rule and preach 
by rule and then comes popery." 



158 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Yet the way of progress won ultimately, as 
it was bound to do. And thus the " singing- 
school " came to be born. This important 
New England institution ranks properly as an 
amusement, and so will be discussed in our 
chapter dealing with recreations of the olden 
times. But it is important to note that in its 
beginnings, it was intimately related — just 
as we shall show the tavern to have been — 
to the all-important meeting-house of old 
New England. 

By the time of the Revolutionary War, many 
new Psalm -Books of varying wretchedness had 
appeared; but music, as we know it to-day, 
scarcely had a voice in New England worship 
until 1778, when William Billings, a tanner 
by trade but a musician by avocation, pub- 
lished an abridgment of his " New England 
Psalm Singer ", which came to be known as 
" Billings' Best " and attained considerable 
popularity. Doctor Louis Elson has said of 
Billings that he " broke the ice which was 
congealing New England music." 

The feature of Billings' tunes was " fuguing ", 
of whose power to raise the soul to Heaven 
Billings was very proud. Doctor Mather 
Byles also approved of this style of music and 
wrote a little verse to express his appreciation. 
But many other little verses there were in 
quite a different tone. Here are two, reprinted 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 159 

in the "American Apollo" in 1792, which pur- 
port to have been " written out of temper on 
a Pannel in one of the Pues in Salem Church ": 

" Could poor King David but for once 
To Salem Church repair; 
And hear his Psalms thus warbled out. 
Good Lord, how he would swear. 

" But could St. Paul but just pop in, 
From higher scenes abstracted. 
And hear his Gospel now explained, 
By Heavens, he'd run distracted." 

It remained for Oliver Holden, who had 
Celtic blood in his veins, ^ — as well as blood of 
purest Puritan strain, — to write hymns which 
were really beautiful and so put into enduring 
musical form the pent-up religious fervor of 
New England. Holden, hke Billings, pub- 
lished a number of hymn books, the most 
notable being " The Worcester Collection of 
Sacred Harmony ", given to the world in 1797 
and printed by Isaiah Thomas of Worcester 
from movable types bought in Europe, the last 
to be so bought for use in this country. Coro- 
nation, probably the best known American 
hymn ever written, was composed for the dedi- 
cation, in May, 1801, of a church which stood 

1 His mother was the niece and adopted daughter of the Earl 
of Carberry. 



160 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

almost in front of Holden's home in Charles- 
town. The church has long since disappeared, 
but the house in which Holden wrote Corona- 
tion still survives, as does the organ upon which 
he harmonized it. That this hymn is a splen- 
didly stirring one, even we of to-day well know. 
A century ago it roused the Yankees to a pitch 
of religious enthusiasm not unlike the patriotic 
frenzy of the sans-culottes when the Marseillaise 
was being sung. 

But it was the sermon and not the hymns, 
however good, which engaged the chief interest 
of pious New Englanders. These sermons 
were wont to be written in a fine hand on small 
pages four by six inches in size, and the one 
which I hold before me in manuscript must 
have been as severe a tax upon the eyes of the 
parson as upon the patience of his congregation. 
We of the twentieth century are congenitally 
disqualified, however, to pronounce upon the 
sermons of our ancestors. The temper of that 
day was argumentative, there was much leisure, 
during the performance of manual labors, to re- 
flect on the things of the Kingdom of Heaven — 
and there was very little else to distract the 
mind from what the parson had to say. 

In the churches, or to speak more by the 
book, the " meeting-houses " of early New 
England, the whole social and intellectual, as 
well as religious, life of the day was concen- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 161 

trated. The church was practically a club as 
well as a religious organization, and " going to 
meetin' " was the most exciting event of the 
week. To live near the meeting-house, close 
enough to be able to walk there, was the height 
of social privilege; but the necessity of jour- 
neying five or six miles to hear the word of God 
was not by any means regarded as an excuse 
for absence. Quite the contrary. For were 
there not endless possibilities of pleasure to 
be derived from cross-roads encounters, from 
church-porch gossipings before and after the 
sermon, and from the nooning period spent in 
the refreshment of the inner man ? 

It is a curious and interesting fact that there 
was often a tavern near the meeting-house, 
which had been placed there for the express 
purpose of Sunday refreshment during this 
noon period. Many cases may be found in 
which such proximity was the condition with- 
out which no permit to sell " beare " could be 
obtained. Thus we find the records of 1651 
granting to John Vyall of Boston " Libertie to 
keep a house of Common entertainment if the 
Countie Court Consent, provided he keepe it 
near the new meeting-house''' 

Occasionally there were long and bitter 
fights in town-meeting about the location of 
the meeting-house. Fitchburg, Massachusetts, 
wrangled for ten years, 1786-1796, as to whether 



162 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

its proposed new structure should or should not 
be situated in the westerly part of the town. 
An amusing incident of the contest was that 
two tavern-keepers in that section, Jedidiah 
Cooper and Jacob Upton, in order to draw busi- 
ness their way, finally built a meeting-house 
of their own, which was used to some extent for 
preaching, but which, failing to be much fre- 
quented or well kept up, won for itself the name, 
the " Lord's Barn ", and was ultimately sold for 
thirty-six dollars. The one amicable and unani- 
mous vote connected with this whole contro- 
versy was concerning the amount of rum which 
might be consumed at the town's expense when, 
at the end of the ten years, the location of the 
new meeting-house was with difficulty agreed 
upon and a day appointed for the " raising." 
Thirty-eight dollars and one cent was appro- 
priated for " Rum and Shugar " to be assimi- 
lated on this occasion, and the resulting edifice 
was dedicated January 19, 1797, Reverend Zab- 
diel Adams of Lunenburg preaching the sermon. 
A curious story is told of the way in which 
Wickford, Rhode Island, got its parish church 
where it wanted to have it. This " oldest 
Episcopal church still standing in the northern 
part of the United States " was erected in 1707 
at the top of what was then called McSparran 
Hill, and was long known as the Narragansett 
Church. In the course of seventy -five years, 




c s 

Pi 3 

C hH 

^ 1 

O 03 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 163 

the population changed so much, however, 
that most of the worshippers who came to the 
church had to travel from Wickford, seven 
miles away. Yet the McSparran faction was 
not willing that the church should be removed 
to the more convenient site. Then the Wick- 
fordians resolved on a couj) d'etat. The road, 
from the place where the church stood to Wick- 
ford, was all down hill. Mustering their forces, 
one evening (in 1800), and pressing into the serv- 
ice all the oxen in the neighborhood, the Wick- 
ford contingent placed the edifice on wheels and, 
while their opponents soundly slept, hauled it 
to the spot at the foot of the hill which seemed 
to them the most convenient place for it. As 
there was no getting the building up the hill 
again, the McSparran folk had no vent for the 
wrath that possessed them. For, of course, 
they could not use unchurchly language. 

Settlements which had built their meeting- 
houses on such high hills or in such out-of-the- 
way places that no innkeeper could be per- 
suaded to go into business in that location 
were wont to erect " fire rooms " near by, in 
which the frozen congregation might thaw out 
between services. Here, in the genial noon- 
ing hour, many a good time was enjoyed as 
lunches were warmed up before the blazing 
logs, and the satisfying flip made to sizzle 
cheerily on the hearth. The social side of the 



164 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" meetin' " was here seen at its best, and while 
the mothers compared their domestic difficulties 
and the fathers discussed the various " points " 
of the sermon and talked over the notices which 
the parson had read from the pulpit or which 
they had seen posted on the meeting-house door, 
the young people cast sheep's eyes at each other 
as young people have ever done. 

Many a happy marriage dated its prefatory 
chapter from words of love whispered during 
this nooning period. In the diary of a little 
Puritan maiden ^ who had a home down Cape 
Cod way, we find some entries which show this 
clearly: "March 20, 1676. This day had a 
private fast. Mr. Willard spoke to the second 
commandment. Mr. Eliot prayed. While we 
were ceasing for half an hour, I saw Samuel 
Checkly and smiled; this was not the time to 
trifle and I repented, especially as he looked at 
me so many times after that I found my mind 
wandering from the psalm. And afterwards, 
when the Biskets, Beer, Cider and Wine were 
distributed he whispered to me that he would 
rather serve me than the elders, which was a 
wicked thing to say, and I felt myself to blame." 

"June 19. Samuel Checkly hath given in his 
testimony, hath witnessed a good confession, 
and become a Freeman." 



1 Quoted by Adeline E. H. Slicer in the New England Magazine 
of September, 1894. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 165 

" October 2. Today I plucked some yellow 
and purple flowers and have opened the windows 
in the fore-room; I can but rejoice and be glad, 
Samuel Checkly, coming through the swamp 
at the same time . . . would fain have brought 
my flowers for me, but that seemed to me not 
maidenly or proper to allow, so he returned by 
the way he came." 

" October 30. Mother hath gone to the fast 
at Jabez Rowland's. I would fain cook the 
pumpkin for the morrow, but, though I do not 
go to the service I must keep the fast at home. 
It is weary doing nothing; Samuel Checkly 's 
mother is too sick to go, and surely Samuel will 
stay at home with her." 

"Boston, April 2, 1677. Mother has writ 
that Samuel Checkly's mother was buried in 
March. There was a fine funeral but she says 
she had tasted better funeral meats. The nap- 
kins were good but sadly stained by the saffron 
in the meat. Poor Samuel! " 

*' November 16, 1677. A letter hath come 
from Samuel Checkly by the hand of Eliphalet 
Tishmond, which hath set my heart in a flutter. 
Since good Mistress Checkly hath entered in to 
her Rest, poor Samuel hath been very lonely." 

This is the end of the diary, for its shy little 
writer, Hetty Shepard, was soon afterwards 
married to Samuel Checkly, the good youth 
who first made love to her during a Sunday 



166 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

nooning period — and who had been " lonely " 
ever since. 

One other entry, not about Samuel Checkly's 
" loneliness," which Hetty Shepard made in 
this diary during her visit to Boston, is as fol- 
lows: " Went to the meeting house, but could 
not sit with Uncle John because he had been 
voted to the first seat, while Aunt Mehitable 
was voted into the third. This seems to me not 
according to justice, but Aunt Mehitable bade 
me consider the judgment of the Elders and the 
tithing-man as above mine own. The pews are 
larger than I ever saw being square with balus- 
trades around them. A chair in the centre for the 
aged. One corner pew was lifted high above 
the stairs almost to the ceiling, and was sat in 
by the blacks." 

Which brings us to one of the most charac- 
teristic of all the interesting customs connected 
with worship in old New England, — " seating 
the meeting." Arranging the congregation with 
due deference to rank was quite as difficult a 
process for our forefathers as the ceremonies 
of a Pumpernickel court. Usually, certain com- 
mittees had this very important matter in 
charge, but occasionally the town meeting 
directly prescribed who should sit where. Com- 
monly, there were seven ranks or divisions in 
the seating, and sometimes these extended to 
fifteen. For trustees, justices, and subscribers 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 167 

of forty shillings per annum toward the church 
rates, especially good seats were provided. 
Those giving thirty shillings had the next best 
places, thus grading downward to pew Num- 
ber 6, which contained nine-shilling contrib- 
utors. Pew Number 7 was usually for young 
men who were not yet heads of families. 

Then came the feminine contingent, led off 
by the inevitable widows, — ministers' widows 
naturally coming first, as deserving of most 
honor. Following whom the wives of the sub- 
scribers of forty shillings found place. But the 
classification was not wholly by money; po- 
sition and family immensely influenced — and 
so complicated — the work of the seating com- 
mittees. 

The highest and most privileged seats were, 
of course, " at the table." Next in rank came 
the fore-seats, which faced the congregation 
on either side of the pulpit. When Judge Sewall 
married his second wife, Mrs. Tilly, he was 
invited, by virtue of her rank, to occupy a 
fore-seat. With much pride he writes: "Mr. 
Oliver in the names of the Overseers invites my 
wife to sit in the foreseat. I thought to have 
brought her into my pue. I thank him and 
the Overseers." But this new wife died at the 
end of a few months, and then Sewall reproached 
himself for the pride he had taken in this honor, 
and left his place in the men's fore-seat. " God 



168 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

in his holy Sovereignty put my wife out of the 
Fore Seat. I apprehended I had cause to be 
ashamed of my Sin and loath myself for it, 
and retired into my Pue." When Sewall was 
himself asked to take a part in " seating of the 
meeting ", he diplomatically evaded the re- 
sponsibility; full well he knew that it was 
practically impossible to please everybody while 

" In the goodly house of worship, where in order 

due and fit, 
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked 

the people sit; 
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire 

before the clown 
From the brave coat, lace embroidered, to the 

gray frock shading down." 

In nearly all towns negroes had seats apart, 
black women being seated in an enclosed pew 
labeled " B. W. ", and negro men in one la- 
beled " B. M." Boys sat on the pulpit and 
gallery stairs, and unmarried men and im- 
married women by themselves on opposite 
sides of the church. Occasionally a group of 
unmarried women would build and own a 
" maids pue " in common. In the church 
records of a town named Scotland, in Connecti- 
cut, may be found an entry to the effect that 
" An Hurlburt, Pashants and Mary Lazelle, 
Younes Bingham, prudenc Hurlburt and Je- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 169 

rusha meachem " are empowered to build a 
pew " provided they build within a year and 
raise ye pue no higher than the seat is on the 
Mens side." Restrictions as to the height of the 
pew almost invariably accompanied permits to 
build. 

For, whereas the first seats of the early New 
England meeting-houses had been rough benches 
placed on legs, like milking-stools, by the end of 
the seventeenth century the worshippers sat 
in pews whose partition walls extended so high 
that only the tops of the tallest heads could be 
seen when the occupants were in their places. 
The seats here were still narrow and uncom- 
fortable, however, being mere shelves on hinges, 
which ranged around three and sometimes four 
sides of the pew. During the psalms and the 
prayers, which were frequently half an hour in 
length, the people stood, leaning on the sides 
of the pew, their seats shut up to give them 
more room. 

" And when at last the loud Amen 
Fell from aloft, how quickly then 
The seats came down with heavy rattle, 
Like musketry in fiercest battle." 

Wriggling boys looked forward eagerly, of 
course, to this opportunity to signify their ap- 
proval of the Amen. Thus there came to be 
such entries in the church-books as this: " The 



170 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

people are to Let down their Seats without 
Such Nois." " The boyes are not to wickedly 
noise down their pew-seats." The slamming 
of pew-seats could often be heard more than 
half a mile away from the meeting-house, in 
the summer-time; there seems quite sufficient 
ground, therefore, for the story about a South- 
erner, who, entering an old New England church 
rather late one Sunday morning, exclaimed in 
amazement, as the rattle of descending seats 
fell upon his ears: " What, do you Northern 
people applaud in church? " 

Strutting up and down the aisle in any one 
of these old meeting-houses was to be seen the 
ti thing-man, whom Mrs. Earle has well called 
" the most grotesque, the most extraordinary, 
the most highly colored figure in all the dull 
New England church-life." Laborious and 
delicate as was the work of the seating com- 
mittee, it was as nothing compared to the task 
of the ti thing-man, that functionary who cate- 
chized the heads of the ten families under his 
care, saw that the living expenses of his charges 
were never disproportionate to the sum they 
appropriated for church-worship, and, on the 
Sabbath, walked grandly about, bearing his 
wand of office and using it with all zeal. This 
wand was a long staff, sharply knobbed at one 
end, — the boys' end. From the other end 
hung a long fox-tail or a hare's foot, with which 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 171 

to tickle the men and women who had dropped 
into a gentle doze during the sermon. Caraway 
seed was supposed to be a fortifier against over- 
whelming sleepiness. For which reason the 
little bouquet which formed a part of the 
women's going to meetin' toilet, in summer, 
nearly always included, with its pinks or white 
rose, a sprig of this fragrant plant. But the men, 
of course, disdained such helps, and fell asleep 
very often. Sometimes, when the tithing- 
man pricked them with his staff, they sprang 
up, as did Mr. Tomlins of Lynn on a certain 
occasion, to " prophanlie exclaim in a loud voice 
curse ye wood-chuck, he dreaming so it seemed 
yt a wood-chuck had seized and bit his hand." 
One Puritan preacher ironically suggested to 
a congregation, which he observed to be in a 
somnolent state, that they might like better 
the Church of England service of sitting down 
and standing up, a very dreadful threat which 
must have roused them quite effectively. For 
the Church of England was to the Puritan Hke 
a red rag to a bull. When Episcopalians were 
granted the right to hold services in the east 
end of Boston's Town House, in the spring of 
1686 (in anticipation of the arrival in Massa- 
chusetts of the Colonial Governor, Sir Edmund 
Andros), Samuel Sewall piously chanted " as 
exceedingly suited to the day " the one hun- 
dred and forty-first Psalm, beginning: "Lord, 



172 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

I cry unto thee; make haste unto me; give ear 
unto my voice, when I cry unto thee ", and 
ending after much similar lamentation with the 
petition, " Let the wicked fall into their own 
nets whilst that I withal escape." 

A great many things that seem to us very 
puzzling, very narrow, and very repellent in the 
early history of New England, become quite 
clear when we realize that at the beginning 
the identity of Church and State was absolute. 
There were no freemen except Church members, 
no tests of citizenship except adherence to the 
creed of the fathers. It was not then a ques- 
tion of Church and State; the Church was the 
State. ^ Heresy and sedition were thus synony- 
mous terms. Thus when Anne Hutchinson, 
tried at the ecclesiastical bar for an offense 
against religion (as those in power then under- 
stood the term), was found guilty, it was in- 
evitable that her punishment should be banish- 
ment from the colony. The year of her perse- 
cution, 1637, was just seventeen years after the 
Pilgrims had landed in America, and their spirit 
of desperate sincerity and seriousness was still 
strong. Work and prayer still occupied all 
their thought. Religion was the sole comfort 
of their souls, " the food ", as has been said, 
"which ate up all the attachments and re- 

1 Ministers were generally chosen in open town meeting; and 
their support, which was at first voluntary, early became a regular 
item of civic expense. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 173 

membrances of home, all their regrets at leaving 
it, very many if not all their baser passions." 
And as it was scarcely to be expected then that 
they would supinely suffer the presence among 
them of one actively at work to pull down the 
institutions and beliefs they held so dear, so 
we should not wonder that, fifty years later, 
they resented with corroding hatred the high- 
handedness of Sir Edmund Andros. 

Men who had withstood the temptations of 
the Devil and fallen into no heresy were so 
proud of the fact that they sometimes had it 
incorporated into their epitaphs ! Thus Thomas 
Dudley of Roxbury left as his dying message: 

" Farewell dear wife, children and friends. 

Hate heresy, make blessed ends, 

Bear poverty, live with good men. 

So shall we meet with joy again. 

Let men of God in courts and churches watch 

O'er such as do a toleration hatch, 

Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice, 

To poison all with heresy and vice. 

If men be left and otherwise combine, 

My epitaph's I dy'd no libertine." 

Sewall was the last man to " hatch a tolera- 
tion." So, though it is amusing, it is also 
touching to follow his mental processes at this 
time. He has grave doubts whether he can 
conscientiously serve in the militia under a 
flag in which the cross, cut out by Endicott, 



174 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

has been replaced, and he finally answers his 
own question by resigning as captain of the 
South Company. All forms and ceremonies, 
symbols and signs, it must be recollected, were 
to the Puritans marks of the Beast, and it was 
torture to them to see them coming back into 
use; to have a priest in a surplice conducting, 
in their Town House, a service they had crossed 
the seas to escape; to see men buried accord- 
ing to the prayer-book; and to learn that mar- 
riages, which they had made a purely civil con- 
tract, must henceforth be solemnized by the 
rites of the church. Regardless of the wishes 
of Sewall and his kind, however, Sir Edmund 
Andros determined that Church of England 
services should be carried on, and, pending the 
erection of a suitable edifice, declared that a 
prayer-book service must be held in one of the 
three Boston meeting-houses. Vigorously the 
Puritans protested that they could not " consent 
to part with it to such use " and exliibited a 
deed showing their right to control service in 
the South Meeting-house. But it was all of 
no avail; the service was held there just the 
same, and *' Goodm. Needham, tho' had re- 
solv'd to ye Contrary, was prevail'd upon to 
Ring ye Bell." The ringing of that bell sounded 
the knell of Puritan autocracy in New England. 
For the most part, however, the people in 
the towns, as well as in the villages, still clung 



OLD NEW EjN^GLAND 175 

to the long, long sermons and the dreary, ex- 
temporaneous prayers for whose sake they had 
exiled themselves. And the fact that their 
meeting-houses were stifling hot in summer and 
freezing cold in winter scarcely affected them 
at all. Veritable stoics were these Puritans! 
The women, to be sure, sometimes had httle 
foot-stoves filled with live coals to keep their 
feet warm during the service; and they doubt- 
less needed them. For, even in the coldest 
weather, the Puritan woman wore linen under- 
clothing and gowns with short elbow sleeves 
and round low necks. Only their hands and 
their heads were warmly clothed, the former 
by means of mittens and muffs, ^ and the latter 
by the use of quilted hoods. Yet even foot-stoves 
were not always allowed. After the First 
Church of Roxbury was destroyed by fire, in 
1747, the use of foot-stoves in meeting was there 
prohibited. In order to avoid the necessity of 
similar action the Old South Church of Boston 
made this rule, January 16, 1771: "Whereas 
danger is apprehended from the stoves that are 
frequently left in the meeting-house after the 
publique worship is over; Voted, that the 
saxton make diligent search on the Lord's Day 
evening and in the evening after a lecture, to 
see if any stoves are left in the house, and that 
if he find any there he take them to his own 

^ Often they carried hot potatoes in the muffs. 



176 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

house; and itt is expected that the owners of 
such stoves make reasonable satisfaction to the 
Saxton for his trouble before they take them 
away." 

Since men had no stoves on which to warm 
their feet, they sometimes brought their dogs 
to church to serve as a foot-muff. By reason 
of which custom, we find in the records of the 
early churches such entries as: " Whatsoever 
doggs come into the meeting-house in time of 
public worship, their owners shall each pay six- 
pence." 

The First Church of Boston, which, in 1773, 
began to heat its meeting-house by means of a 
stove, has generally been credited with head- 
ing the procession of the Puritan Sybarites; 
but it is now conceded that this distinction be- 
longs to Hadley, Massachusetts, which had an 
iron stove in its meeting-house as early as 
1734. In 1783 the Old South Church, Boston, 
adopted this luxurious innovation, thus causing 
the Evening Post of January 25, 1783, to bewail 
modern customs as follows: 

*' Extinct the sacred fire of love. 
Our zeal grown cold and dead. 
In the house of God we fix a stove 
To warm us in their stead." 

Stove and anti-stove factions now developed 
in every New England congregation. One very 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 177 

amusing story is told about the wife of an anti- 
stove deacon, who found the unaccustomed heat 
so exhausting that when the minister referred 
in his sermon to " heaping coals of fire " she 
could bear the stifling atmosphere no longer 
and fainted. Upon being resuscitated, she mur- 
mured languidly that her bad turn was all due 
to the " heat of that stove." Her discomfort 
had a keen rival in her chagrin, when she was told 
that no fire had as yet been lighted in the 
church's recent purchase. 

The minister who could hold the balance 
even, in the midst of these petty bickerings, 
and keep his people spiritual-minded and honest- 
hearted, whatever controversies or dissensions 
might be under way, had to be a very remarka- 
ble person. There is abundant evidence that 
the clergy of early New England were remark- 
able. The people usually appreciated their 
saintly qualities, too, and gave them all honor 
alive as well as dead. To be sure, the salaries 
paid these good men seem to us of to-day very 
small, and we wonder how a family could have 
been brought up and sent to college on so few 
pounds of actual money per year. Yet we can- 
not escape the fact that every householder 
contributed, according to his means, to the sup- 
port of the church and its activities and gave 
to the parson, also, a share of all good things 
which came fortuitously his way. At Plymouth, 



178 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

in 1662, the court provided that to *' the able 
and godly minister among them " should be 
given some part of every whale there cast up 
from the sea. In Newbury the first salmon 
caught each year went to the parson; and 
Judge Sewall records that he visited the minis- 
ter and " carried him a Bushel of Turnips, cost 
me five shillings, and a Cabbage cost half a 
Crown." (The " donation party " for the minis- 
ter was a New England institution of much later 
development and of considerably less dignity.) 
Wood for the parson was regarded as a regular 
part of the parish responsibility, and when it 
was not forthcoming the minister felt no hesi- 
tation about alluding publicly to his lack. 
Thus on a certain November Sunday, Reverend 
Mr. French of Andover said significantly: 
" I will write two discourses and deliver them 
in this meeting-house on Thanksgiving Day, 
provided I can manage to write them without 
a fire." Ezra Stiles, afterwards president of 
Yale and one of the ablest men of his day, when 
a minister at Dighton, Massachusetts, records 
in his diary, with gratitude (March 14, 1777), 
that he is not in debt for his subsistence during 
the past year " and blessed be God there is 
some Meal in the Barrel & a little Oyl in the 
Cruise. The people here give me £60 a year, 
House & wood." 

In the early days, the " minister tax " was 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 179 

compulsory and averaged twopence on the 
pound of a man's tax-list, or its equivalent, at 
the market value, in any of the necessaries of 
living. The sums thus realized were modest 
ones. The Reverend Jedidiah Mills, who for 
more than fifty years presided over the meet- 
ing-house at Huntington, Connecticut, received 
for a long time only fifty pounds a year. The 
salary of his colleague at the Episcopal 
Church of the same town was fixed in 1800 
at '* one hundred pounds lawful money and 
forty loads of wood." Most ministers had large 
families, too, believing that they should set 
an example in this way. Cotton Mather, who 
himself had fifteen children, records with no 
little pride some of the large families of his day. 
He tells of one woman who had twenty-two 
children and of another who, having borne 
twenty-three children to one man, had the 
courage, mirahile dictu, to take unto herself, 
upon his death, another devoted spouse. Still 
a third woman instanced by Mather bore seven 
and twenty children. Reverend John Sherman, 
of Watertown, Massachusetts, had twenty-six 
children by two wives. Reverend Samuel Wil- 
lard, the first minister of Groton, Massachusetts, 
had twenty children, and Reverend Abijah 
Weld of Attleboro, Massachusetts, reared fifteen 
children and a grandchild on an annual salary 
of about two hundred and twenty dollars. Rev- 



180 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

erend Moses Fiske had sixteen children and suc- 
cessfully married off three daughters and sent 
three sons to college, all on a salary which 
ranged from sixty to ninety pounds and was 
paid chiefly in corn and wood. 

Ushering babies into the world was an ex- 
pensive indulgence, too, in the early days, 
for the reason that special social and religious 
observances accompanied the event. Beer in 
plenty was brewed well in advance of the birth. 
Judge Sewall speaks of preparing " groaning- 
beer " nearly two months before we find him 
recording the arrival of his newest offspring, 
and there is a tradition that '* groaning-cakes " 
were also baked to serve to visitors at this 
time. " At the birth of their children they 
drink a glass of wine and eat a bit of a certain 
cake, which is seldom made but upon these oc- 
casions ", writes the Frenchman, Misson, in 
his " Travels in England ", and from various 
allusions it would appear that this custom ob- 
tained in New England also. Anna Green 
Winslow writes of being taken, as a little girl, 
to make a " setting up visit " to a relative 
whose baby was then about four weeks old. 
" It cost me a pistareen to Nurse Eaton for two 
cakes, which I took care to eat before I paid 
for them", she tells us quaintly; a pistareen was 
about seventeen cents, which made these 
nurse's cakes come a bit high. Money, cloth- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 181 

ing, and petty trinkets were always given to 
the nurse at such times, and it was also custom- 
ary to invite for dinner, in the early days of 
the young child's life, the midwife, the nurses, 
and all the women of the neighborhood who had 
helped with work or advice during the " groan- 
ing." One Sewall baby was scarcely two weeks 
old when seventeen women dined at the Judge's 
house on boiled pork, beef, and fowls; roast 
beef and turkey; pies and tarts. At another 
time " minc'd Pyes and cheese " were added 
to the menu, and sack and claret were often 
then enjoyed. 

As short and simple as the annals of the poor 
are the entries which tell the life story of many 
a godly New England minister. The calling of 
Reverend Samuel Hopkins, who married a 
sister of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, is 
thus related in the record book of the West 
Springfield, Massachusetts, parish, which he 
served for thirty-six years. The facts, as here 
set down, are interesting because they show 
that a minister was procured in much the same 
manner as we have seen to be the case when 
a schoolmaster was needed. 

*' In order to procuer a minister, there having 
been much discours About sending for a min- 
ister and whither to goe toward Boston or to 
send to the lower Colledg, Benjamin Smith 
(having business to goe to Boston as was sup- 



182 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

posed) made an offer that he would get a min- 
ister and If he did not, would have notheing 
for his pains, But he not being Redy to goe. 
It was Voted and Concluded that the County 
should take care to send by the first oper- 
tunitye toward Boston to se after a minister 
by sum man that was goeing that way about 
his own busines. And after a minister ware 
obtained to pay what nesessary charg should 
be expended in bringing of a minister but not 
to pay anything If no minister Came. But only 
what was nesessary for the minister's charge, not 
aloweing anything for the mans Journey. And 
that the present Comitey give orders to the 
man that went If any opertunity presented." 

On December 21 following the chronicler 
writes : 

*' Votes made and past To alow Deacon 
Parsons and Deacon Ely 2 shillings per day for 
9 days a piece in their Journey to Boston after 
a minister and to Deacon Parsons ISshilhngs 
for his horse and Deacon Ely 10 shillings. And 
to Deacon Parsons lO shillings for his time to 
New Haven and to alow for ther expences the 
Sum 3-2-1 to boston and new haven." As a 
result of the work done by these three worthies 
— -and the horses which bore them on their 
journeys — Reverend Samuel Hopkins, on Janu- 
ary 25, 1720, was invited to serve the parish 
at West Springfield. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 183 

I have found no record of an ordination ball 
on the occasion of Mr. Hopkins' installation at 
West Springfield, but there is still in existence 
a letter of invitation, written by Reverend 
Timothy Edwards, who was ordained in Wind- 
sor in 1694, to Mr. and Mrs. Stoughton, asking 
them to attend the ordination ball to be given 
in his, the minister's house; this may very well 
be accepted as evidence that the ministers did 
not universally discountenance dancing. But 
though there might or might not be an ordina- 
tion ball, there was always an ordination sup- 
per with " Ordination Beare ", " pompions ", 
" turces " cooked in various ways, '* rhum " 
and '* cacks." The items of one tavern-keeper's 
bill, on a certain ordination occasion held in 
Hartford in 1784, show quite an appalling ex- 
penditure for liquors and " segars." 

We must remember, as we marvel on this 
matter, that it was an age when everybody 
drank. And an " ordination journey " was a 
great event in the life of a minister. Many a 
weary trip was his, in which there was no ele- 
ment of junketing. Often the parson was ex- 
posed to very real dangers as he went about 
his daily work. As late as 1776 it was voted 
by the town of Winthrop, Maine, to pay the 
Reverend Mr. Shaw " four shillings which he 
paid for a pilot through the woods when he 
went there to conduct services." Treading a 



184 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

dangerous path through the uncharted forest 
played a much larger part in the average parson's 
life than " segars " and '' bitters " before break- 
fast. So while we relate, because it is amusing, 
the story of the Reverend Ephraim Judson, 
ninth minister of Taunton, Massachusetts, of 
whom it is told that on hot summer Sundays 
he would give out the longest hymn in the hymn- 
book and then stroll forth and stretch out 
under a tree while his perspiring congregation 
toiled through their involuntary praise of the 
Lord, it must be borne in mind that self-in- 
dulgence on the part of the clergy was a thing 
of exceeding rarity. 

" The Creature called Tobacko " had never 
been very genially welcomed in New England, 
either by parson or people. At the beginning 
of the colony's history, tobacco was forbidden 
to be planted except in very small quantities 
*' for meere necessitie, for phisick, for preserva- 
tion of health, and that the same be taken 
privatly by auncient men." The law of Con- 
necticut permitted a man to smoke once, if he 
went on a journey of ten miles, but never more 
than once a day and never in another man's 
house. And concerning the use of tobacco on 
the Sabbath, orders were severe and explicit 
throughout New England. The feeling seems 
to have been that this " creature " was a good 
thing of which too much use might easily be 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 185 

made. Highly virtuous men, like Roger Will- 
iams,^ employed it in their families at times 
of sickness, and old women who were in bad 
health used it also. There is quoted in an ac- 
count of Barnstable an old letter, in which 
a citizen who had commanded the Plymouth 
forces during King Philip's War declines, be- 
cause of his wife's ill health, Governor Wins- 
low's appointment to lead an expedition against 
the Dutch. He pleads: 

" My wife, as is well known to the whole 
town, is not only a weak woman, and has been 
so all along, but now, by reason of her age, 
being sixty-seven years and upwards, and na- 
ture decaying, so her illness grows more strongly 
upon her. . . . She cannot lie for want of 
breath. And when she is up, she cannot light a 
pipe of tobacco but it must be lighted for her." ^ 

Yet though a man could not smoke on the 
way to worship, there is abundant evidence 
that he enjoyed the journey as he jolted along 
on his sturdy farm horse, with his wife perched 
on the pillion behind him, across the fields and 
through the narrow bridle-paths which led to 
the meeting-house on the hill or to the church 
green in the village. 

^ We find Roger Williams writing Winthrop in 1660: " My 
youngest son, Joseph, was troubled with a spice of an epilepsy 
. . . but it has pleased God, by his taking of tobacco, perfectly, as 
we hope, to cure him." 

2 " Historic Towns of New England," p. 390. C. P. Putnam's 
Sons. 



186 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

As he drew near to the house of worship, a 
filhp might be given to his comfort and self- 
complacency by contemplation of the stocks, 
the pillory, and the whipping-post, which were 
often placed in close juxtaposition to the church 
building — very likely because offenders against 
the laws of the State were always held to have 
broken the higher law also. Nor were these 
very cruel modes of punishment so infrequently 
in use as some historians would have us think. 
We find by the records that at Taunton, Mas- 
sachusetts, on a bright May training-day of 
1656 Alexander Aimes sat in the stocks, a 
Scotchman was publicly whipped, and Kath- 
eren Aimes stood on the church green wearing 
on her breast the shameful scarlet letter which 
Hawthorne has so poignantly immortalized 
in his story about Hester Prynne. All this on 
a single day! And examples might easily be 
multiplied. 

The Reverend Samuel Peters, in his deeply 
resented " History of Connecticut ", declared 
that the people of that State were wont to look 
very sour and sad on the eve of the Sabbath, — 
as if they had lost their dearest friends. " Here 
they observe the Sabbath with more exactness 
than did the Jews ", he wrote. " A Quaker 
preacher told them, with much truth, that 
they worshipped the Sabbath and not the God 
of the Sabbath. Whereupon, without charity. 




HESTER PRYNNE OF " THE SCARLET LETTER." 
From the painting by Frank H. Tompkins. 



\ 




A FINE OLD MEETING HOUSE, BENNINGTON. VT. 

See p. 194. 







OLD NEW ENGLAND 187 

these hospitable people condemned the Quaker 
as a blasphemer of the holy Sabbath, fined, 
tarred, and feathered him, put a rope about his 
neck, and plunged him into the sea." 

Another of Peters' delectable stories about 
Sabbath-breaking in Connecticut is to the 
effect that in 1750 "an episcopal clergyman, 
born and educated in England, who had been in 
holy orders above twenty years, broke their sab- 
batical law by combing a lock of discomposed 
hair on the top of his wig; at another time, 
for making a humming noise which they called 
whistling; at a third time, by walking too fast 
from church; at a fourth, by running into 
church when it rained; at a fifth, by walking in 
his garden and picking a bunch of grapes: for 
which several times he was complained of by 
the Grand Jury, had warrants granted against 
him, was seized, brought to trial, and paid a 
considerable sum of money." 

Even the Sunday-school, when first intro- 
duced, was regarded in New England as a pro- 
fanation of the Sabbath! In the Neivburyport 
Herald of January 12, 1791, may be found 
an account of the establishment of Sunday- 
schools in Philadelphia by some benevolent 
persons in the city, with this comment: " Pity 
their benevolence did not extend so far as to 
afford them tuition on days when it is lawful 
to follow such pursuits, and not thereby lay 



188 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

a foundation for the profanation of the Sab- 
bath." This in spite of the fact that Sunday- 
schools here, as in England, where Robert 
Raikes started them in 1780, were instituted 
for the express purpose of teaching poor children 
to read in order that they might learn their 
Catechism or study the Bible. 

Yet the very New England which frowned 
upon Sunday-schools welcomed the Jew. 

Nothing in our early history is more inter- 
esting than the hospitality accorded by New- 
port, in 1658 or thereabouts, to the little com- 
pany of Hebrews who then first came there to 
live. Yeshuat Israel, or Salvation of Israel, 
in Newport, is said to be the oldest Jewish con- 
gregation in America; and the synagogue on 
Touro Street, which was organized in 1680, 
antedates any other on the North American con- 
tinent. In 1769, out of the eleven thousand in- 
habitants of Newport, thj-ee hundred were Jews; 
which inspired Cotton Mather in his " Mag- 
nalia " to characterize the town as "the com- 
mon receptacle of the convicts of Jerusalem 
and the outcasts of the land." 

Mather in this passage once again shows 
himself constitutionally disqualified to write 
history. For the first band of Hebrews who 
made their homes in Newport were men of 
great cultivation and enlightenment. Their 
numbers were augmented in 1694 by a number 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 189 

of families from Curagoa or one of the adja- 
cent islands in the West Indies, the General 
Assembly of Rhode Island having voted ten 
years before in favor of allowing Jews to 
settle in their colony. It was felt that these 
people made exceedingly desirable citizens. 
That they contributed notably to the great 
commercial success of Newport by the trade- 
secrets they brought with them is a well estab- 
lished fact. The rendering of spermaceti by 
a new method which they introduced was es- 
pecially appreciated in a society which had 
hitherto been forced to depend for light on 
home-made candles of bayberry wax. 

The earthquake at Lisbon and the Inquisition 
in Spain were responsible for adding many more 
Jews to the population of Newport about the 
middle of the eighteenth century. Among 
those who came at this time was Reverend 
Isaac Touro, first minister of the synagogue 
which still stands half-way up the hill over- 
looking the harbor of Newport. Peter Harri- 
son, who was the architect of this building, 
carefully conformed to the rules for erecting 
such sacred houses, with the result that the 
building is on an elevation, fronts due south, re- 
gardless of the line of the adjoining street, and 
is so planned that worshippers face the east 
when praying. The edifice was also provided 
with an oven, in which all the unleavened bread 



190 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

necessary for its use could be baked; and, of 
course, there were no pictures of men or beasts 
on the walls, that being forbidden by the Mosaic 
law. Judah Touro, who in 1840 joined Amos 
Lawrence in contributing ten thousand dollars 
towards finishing Bunker Hill Monument, was 
a son of this early rabbi. At the time that Mr. 
Lawrence and Mr. Touro made their generous 
gifts, the following lines were circulated: 

"Amos and Judah — venerated names! 
Patriarch and prophet press their equal claims. 
Like generous courses, running neck and neck. 
Each aids the work by giving it a cheque. 
Christian and Jew, they carry out a plan, 
For though of different faith, each is, in heart, 
a man." 

Not long after the Jews of Newport had 
formed themselves into a congregation, the 
Episcopalians of the town incorporated and 
started Trinity Church. By 1702 this group of 
Christians had a home of their own, beneath 
the shadow of the old stone tower; and here, 
to minister to them, the London " Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts " sent, in 1704, the Reverend James 
Honyman, under whose leadership was built, 
in 1725, the Trinity Church building, which 
still stands. The church has been enlarged 
and altered at different periods of its history, 




W a 

f-* CD 




I 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 191 

but its interior is practically unchanged, and 
here may be seen to-day the only three-decked 
pulpit remaining in New England, and the 
only surviving pulpit of any pattern from which 
the Bishop of Cloyne ever preached. Mr. Hony- 
man was holding a service in Trinity when 
Dean Berkeley, as he was then, arrived in New- 
port and announced himself in impressive fash- 
ion. A messenger climbed the steep hill on 
which the church stands and handed to the 
verger a letter which looked so important that 
that functionary, clad in his long black robe 
and holding a staff in his hand, marched up 
the center aisle and solemnly handed the com- 
munication to the officiating priest. Mr. Hony- 
man opened the letter and read it, first to him- 
self, and then aloud. In it the celebrated wan- 
derer announced that he was about to land in 
Newport on his way to the West Indies. Im- 
mediately the entire congregation adjourned 
to meet and escort to the church " Pious 
Cloyne," as Berkeley was later called. 

The organ of Trinity Church was that de- 
signed by Berkeley for the Massachusetts town 
which bears his name. When this commu- 
nity rejected the gift on the ground that "an 
organ is an instrument of the devil for the en- 
trapping of men's souls ", Trinity Church fell 
heir to the donation. 

How unspeakably tragic it was felt to be in 



192 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

old New England when any one of Puritan 
blood became a convert to Rome is seen in the 
pained and scanty references to the romantic 
fate of Eunice Williams, daughter of " the re- 
deemed captive ", and sister of the Reverend 
Stephen Williams of Longmeadow. During 
the sack of Deerfield, in 1714, the whole Will- 
iams family had been taken captive by the 
Indians, but after a lapse of years all returned 
from Canada except Eunice, who had there 
espoused the Roman Catholic faith, and, while 
still very young, married an Indian chief of the 
Iroquois tribe. Every effort was made by her 
relatives to induce her to leave her Indian family, 
but she would not come back, even for a visit, 
until 1740. In August of that year, Parson 
Williams of Longmeadow, a Harvard graduate, 
was notified that Eunice Williams was in 
Albany. At once he set off to meet his sister, 
accompanied by his brother-in-law, another 
parson. In his diary he records that their re- 
union was a "joyful, sorrowful one." The en- 
tire party, which included Eunice, her husband, 
her two children, and some friends, were on 
this occasion induced to come to Longmeadow 
for a visit, and, as might have been supposed, 
" ye whole place was greatly moved " thereby. 
Now Eunice had been only five when torn 
from her Puritan background; yet it was con- 
fidently expected that she would abandon her 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 193 

Romish faith immediately upon being exposed 
to " pubhck worship with us " ! The utmost 
astonishment prevailed because she did no 
such thing. Though she came to New England 
three times after this first visit, all attempts 
to make her settle in the country or renounce 
her adopted religion were in vain. It will be 
understood that " the heathen " were prayed 
for with especial fervor in Stephen Williams' 
pulpit. 

Very likely it was held to be an answer to 
these prayers that in 1800 Thomas Williams, 
Eunice's grandson, brought to Longmeadow 
to be educated two lads he called his sons. 
No one ever questioned the Indian paternity 
of John, who was seven at this time. But the 
family background of Eleazar Williams, the 
other boy, a lad whose age could not easily be 
determined and who had absolutely no Indian 
characteristics in form or feature, was then, 
and has ever since remained, a mystery. The 
oft-repeated story that he was the lost Dauphin 
of France has served to bathe in a romantic 
glow the austere outlines of the meeting-house 
at Longmeadow, near Springfield, Massachu- 
setts, with which his boyhood days were inti- 
mately associated. 

Sometimes these old New England meeting- 
houses are sought out by interested visitors 
from afar because of their unusual architectural 



194 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

beauty. This is true of the First Church at 
Bennington, Vermont, one of the most beau- 
tiful existing examples of the Christopher Wren 
style in church edifices. Erected in 1805, the 
present building carries on the traditions of the 
oldest church in Vermont, that which was here 
organized in 1763 with Reverend Jedidiah 
Dewey as its pastor. Colonel Ethan Allen oc- 
casionally worshipped in Mr, Dewey's con- 
gregation, but being inclined to free-thinking, 
sometimes took issue with statements made in 
the pulpit. Once, when some remark in the 
discourse displeased him, he rose in his place at 
the head of a prominent pew in the broad aisle, 
and saying in audible tones: "It's not so", 
started to leave the building. Whereupon 
Parson Dewey, lifting up his right hand and 
pointing with his forefinger directly at Colonel 
Allen, said: " Sit down, thou bold blasphemer, and 
listen to the word of God J' Ethan Allen sat down 
and listened. 

Another good Ethan Allen story ^ is told in 
connection with a certain Father Marshall, 
who frequently preached in Vermont and was 
once the guest for the night at the home of the 
doughty colonel. In the morning the parson 
was duly called upon to attend family prayers. 
Had he been less quick-witted, he might have 
been somewhat disturbed at having handed to 

^ " Memorials of a Century," by Isaac Jennings. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 195 

him an atheistical book of Allen's, called " Ora- 
cles of Reason", its author remarking: "This 
is my bible. I suppose you have no objection 
to read out of my bible." 

The reverend guest replied: "Let us sing a 
few verses first; have you any objection to the 
common psalm-book.^ " 

" Not at all," said the host. 

Whereupon Mr. Marshall, taking up the 
psalm-book which lay upon the table, selected 
and proceeded to read the psalm beginning with 
the stanza: 

" Let all the heathen writers join 
To form one perfect book, — 
Great God, if once compared with thine. 
How mean their writings look! " 

Allen, who was more man than infidel, ex- 
claimed at once with great cordiality and frank- 
ness: *' Floored, Father Marshall; take your 
own Bible." 



196 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER V 



GETTING MARRIED 



NO one who reads history intelHgently 
can have failed to observe that morals, 
as well as social customs, are inextricably 
bound up with climatic conditions, transporta- 
tion facilities, and the current standards of liv- 
ing. The fact that Madam Knight, when making 
her renowned journey from Boston to New York 
in 1704, frequently shared her sleeping-room 
with strange men — travelers like herself — 
does not at all mean that this estimable Boston 
schoolmistress was a lady of light morals, but 
simply that the exigencies of the situation and 
the customs of the time made necessary this, 
to us, revolting custom. In a similar way we 
may account for the much more revolting cus- 
tom of bundling, as it was called, which so 
frequently prefaced marriage in old New Eng- 
land. Historians generally are inclined to touch 
lightly if at all on this phase of our early social 
life, feeling, very likely, that to give such an 
institution the prominence it really possessed 
would be to detract from the dignity of their 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 197 

narrations. My excuse for taking a somewhat 
different attitude on this matter must, if an 
excuse is needed, he in the contention Thomas 
Wentworth Higginson was wont to make: that 
the truth of history is a sacred thing, a thing 
far more important than its dignity. 

The almost systematic suppression of evi- 
dence in regard to the laxity of sexual relations 
in early New England is particularly to be con- 
demned for the reason that contemporary litera- 
ture repeatedly refers with utter frankness to 
bundling as a social custom. In The Contrast, 
one of the earliest of American plays, which 
was written by Royall Tyler, a New Englander, 
and first produced at the John Street Theater 
in New York in 1787,^ Jonathan, when roundly 
snubbed for philandering with Jenny, declares 
thoughtfully that if that is the way city ladies 
act, he will continue to prefer his Tabitha, 
with her twenty acres of rock, her Bible, a 
cow, and " a little peaceable bundling." Again, 
Mrs. John Adams, in a letter written in 
1784 to her elder sister, Mrs. C ranch, re- 
fers to this custom in quite as casual a way 
as we might to-day to analogous moral 
lapses among people whose plane of intelli- 
gence is not quite ours. " Necessity," she 
says, as she describes the common cabin of the 
sailing-vessel in which she is just then crossing 

^ See my " Romance of the American Theatre," p. 93. 



198 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

the Atlantic, " necessity has no law; but should 
I have thought on shore to have laid myself 
down in common with half a dozen gentlemen? 
We have curtains, it is true, and we only in part 
undress, — about as much as the Yankee bun- 
dlers." 

Bundling, it should be understood, was not 
regarded as an immoral custom; it was a prac- 
tice growing out of the primitive social and in- 
dustrial conditions of the times, and was toler- 
ated, if not encouraged in the country districts 
as a means of promoting matrimony. Two 
young people who intended to marry lived far 
apart and worked early and late all the week. 
Only on Saturday evening and Sunday could 
they meet for love-making. Accordingly, on 
the eve of the Sabbath, the man would journey 
to the home of his beloved and, quite regularly, 
stay there until Sunday. Throughout the eve- 
ning they would be able to see each other only 
in the presence of the family, for houses were 
small and fires were a luxury. The one fire 
which most people could afford usually burned 
in the kitchen, and the ordinary farm-family 
could not afford to burn this after nine or ten 
o'clock. Hence the girl and her lover were 
bundled up together, after the others had re- 
tired for the night, often on the extra trundle- 
bed which most kitchens then contained, in 
order that they might keep warm and enjoy 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 199 

each other's company without waste of hght or 
fuel. There appears to have been no secrecy 
about the practice; the very '* bundhng " was 
frequently done by the mother or sister of 
the girl who was being thus "courted." And, 
in theory, at any rate, the couple wore their 
clothing. None the less, the practice was fre- 
quently responsible for the birth of a child very 
soon after the young people had been made one 
in marriage. On this account it was that the 
church established what was known as " the 
seven months rule ", a rule, that is, that a child 
born within seven months after the marriage 
of its parents should not be accorded baptism 
(lacking which it was damned if it died) unless 
the parents made public confession of and ex- 
pressed penitence for the " sin of fornication 
before marriage." The records of the Groton 
(Massachusetts) Church show that in this one 
small town no less than sixty-six couples so 
confessed between 1761 and 1775. Nor is this 
an exceptional showing. In the history of 
Dedham, Braintree, and many other country 
towns, similar data may be found. Charles 
Francis Adams has called attention ^ to the in- 
teresting fact that in Braintree, at any rate, 
the period during which the greatest number 
of confessions of " fornication before marriage " 

^ "Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline In 
Colonial New England." Massachusetts Historical Society Proceed- 
ings, 1891. 



200 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

occurred was precisely that of " the Great 
Awakening." He would thus seem to believe 
that a very close relationship existed between 
the morbid spiritual experiences for which the 
great and good Jonathan Edwards was prima- 
rily responsible, and the " tide of immorality " 
which then conspicuously " rolled over the 
land." 

Bundling did not by any means originate in 
New England, it should, however, be under- 
stood. Doctor H. R. Stiles, who has published 
an authoritative monograph on this subject, 
shows that the practice is Teutonic in its origin; 
and establishes the fact, too, that it survived 
in North Wales and in Holland long after it 
was discountenanced in New England. He 
also shows that in no part of New England was 
the custom more prevalent than on Cape Cod, 
and that it held out longest there against the 
advance of more refined manners. 

One interesting outgrowth of the custom 
was the arbitrary refusal of the clergy for many 
years to baptize infants born on the Sabbath, 
there being an ancient superstition that a child 
born on the Sabbath was also conceived on the 
Sabbath. Often this worked a gross injustice. 
Not until a Massachusetts parson of the high- 
est character became the father of twins on the 
Sabbath was this discrimination corrected; the 
worthy minister concerned then made public 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 201 

confession that he had previously been unjust 
and unfair in refusing to baptize Sabbath-born 
babies. 

BundHng came nearest to being a universal 
custom among farming folks in New England 
from 1750 to 1780; but it was at all times re- 
garded by the better classes as a serious evil. 
It is often attributed to Connecticut as if pecul- 
iar to that State; but this is probably due to the 
fact that certain Connecticut historians have 
dealt very frankly with the custom.^ 

In the Connecticut with which bundling is 
so largely associated, another and much better 
way was ultimately found in which to carry on 
the courtship in spite of hampering circum- 
stances. This was by the use of a " courting- 
stick ", a hollow stick about an inch in diameter 
and six or eight feet long, fitted with mouth- and 
ear-pieces, by means of which lovers could ex- 
change their tender vows while seated on either 
side of the fireplace in the presence of the entire 
family. 

Publishing the banns three times in the 
meeting-house, at either town meeting, weekly 
lecture, or Sunday service, was a custom en- 
forced throughout New England, except in 
New Hampshire, for nearly two centuries. The 
names of the contracting parties were not only 
read out by the town clerk, the deacon, or the 

^ See " History of Ancient Windsor," p. 495. 



.202 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

minister, but a notice of the same was placed 
on the church door, or on a " pubhshing post." 
Yet the minister, so powerful in many ways, 
could not, in the early days, perform the mar- 
riage ceremony. That had to be done, until 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, by a 
magistrate. 

No rings were used, it is interesting to know, 
for these magistrate-niade marriages of early 
days. Mather was strongly averse to the use 
of rings, and another writer has characterized 
rings, when used for weddings, as " a Diabollic- 
all Circle for the Divell to daunce in." With 
or without a ring, it was only a self-protective 
measure for a young man to marry as soon as 
he could. The State, which had a hand in most 
things, surrounded the bachelor with a system 
of espionage which must have been anything 
but comfortable. Young unmarried men were 
not allowed to keep house together and were 
made, as boarders in the homes of others, to 
feel that they were but poor and unproduc- 
tive things uselessly cumbering the earth. 

Very likely that youth in Hopkinton, New 
Hampshire, who somewhat uncouthly married 
by capture the girl of his choice, had been sub- 
jected to a protracted season of snubbing for 
not having taken unto himself a wife. He first 
saw his future spouse at the beginning, it is 
said, of an ordination sermon; probably he felt. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 203 

after the " thirteen tlily " had been expounded, 
that he had known and loved her a long time. 
At any rate, he rushed through the crowd the 
minute the benediction was pronounced, and 
seizing her in his arms, declared ardently: 
" Now I have got ye, you jade, I have, I HAVE." 
And the words that he spoke were true words; 
the shrinking modesty of the Puritan maiden 
was conspicuous, in this case at any rate, by 
its absence. Sammy Samples and Elizabeth 
Allen of Manchester, Massachusetts, were aided 
in their wooing by a dream, which came to 
him in Scotland and to her in her New Eng- 
land home. She, too, was in '* meetin' " when 
her lover first clapped his eye upon her. And 
she likewise made no difficulties. Later, when 
left a widow, Elizabeth married Colonel Crafts 
of Revolutionary fame and kept a thriving inn. 
Even then hers was an adventurous and color- 
ful life. Once, when sailing on a packet to 
Boston for her supplies, and improving her 
time by knitting, the sail of her craft veered 
suddenly and she was plunged into the sea. 
Tradition says she still kept on knitting and 
took seven stitches under water before being 
rescued. 

Wooings brought tardily to a successful cli- 
max by the tactful intervention of the woman 
were no less frequent then, probably, than they 
are now. Puritan Priscilla inquiring shyly: 



204 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" Why don't you speak for yourself, John? " 
may be poetic hcense, but it is a well authen- 
ticated historical fact that Ursula Wolcott, 
daughter of Governor Roger Wolcott of Con- 
necticut, quite pointedly suggested the all-im- 
portant question to her second cousin, Matthew 
Griswold, also a Connecticut governor. 

In early life Governor Griswold had been 
passionately in love with a young lady of Dur- 
ham, Connecticut, who, in her turn, was 
enamoured of a physician, whom she hoped 
would propose to her. Whenever Griswold 
pressed his suit, she pleaded that she wished 
for more time. After he had been told this re- 
peatedly, her suitor one day said, with dignity: 
" You shall have more time; you shall have a 
life-time." And so he left her. But he suffered 
sorely, and ofttimes, to ease his aching heart, 
spoke of her whom he had loved to his sweet- 
faced cousin Ursula, who 

" sat breathless, cowed 
Beneath resentment stern and deep, 
Stirred from his long enduring soul." 

After a time, however, Matthew began to think 
a good deal about the charms of this sympa- 
thetic young cousin, yet, dreading another 
repulse, he looked but did not speak his love. 
Often Ursula would break the silence by ob- 




THE REVEREND ARTHUR BROWNE, OF PORTSMOUTH, N. H. 

From the portrait by Copley. 
See p. £1S. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 205 

serving gently: " What said you, Cousin Mat- 
thew? " To which, suddenly panic-stricken, 
he invariably replied: " I said nothing." 

Then one day, feeling that she must, Ursula 
precipitated the climax, according to Charles 
Knowles Bolton,^ who has versified the story 
and gives us its final chapter thus: 

" And Matthew riding toward the door 
Heard her light step upon the stairs 
And entering he found her there. 
She leaned upon the bannister 
With fingers clasped about the spindles; 
And tears, he saw, were lingering 
To dim her eyes. 

*' His pulse was quick. 
And yet he checked his eagerness. 

* It surely cannot be,' he thought, 

* It could not be that she would care.' 
The clock beat loudly through the hall 
To make the stillness yet more still. 
And Ursula, with steady voice 

That trembled ere the words were done. 

Began: ' What said you. Cousin Matthew? * 

And he, as one who comes almost 

To comprehend, said thoughtfully: 

' I did say nothing, Ursula.' 

The colour faded from her cheeks; 

She spoke so timidly and low 

He scarcely heard her plaintive words 

' 'Tis time you did.' " 

^ " The Love Story of Ursula Wolcott." Lamson, Wolffe and Co. 



206 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

A daughter, also named Ursula, who was 
born to these lovers, grew up to be a great 
beauty. She, too, married a cousin somewhat 
removed, — Lynde McCurdy, of Norwich, Con- 
necticut. Roger Griswold, the son of Ursula 
and of her shy husband, became in his turn 
governor of Connecticut, as his father and 
grandfather had been before him. 

The romantic love story of Agnes Surriage 
and Sir Harry Frankland has come to be a part 
of our New England tradition. But concerning 
the equally romantic marriage of Sir John 
Sterling to Glorianna Fulsom, daughter of a 
blacksmith of Stratford, Connecticut, the facts 
are scarcely known. Glorianna, when a beauti- 
ful maiden of sixteen, was wooed and won by a 
handsome visitor to Stratford, who declared 
himself to be the son of a Scotch baronet. 
After their marriage (March 10, 1771), the 
bridegroom wrote home for funds, but, no 
funds coming, he began to teach school, just 
as if he had been a true Yankee, to support his 
blooming young wife. Then, when one daughter 
had been born to the happy couple, the hus- 
band and father sailed away to Scotland. 

Gossip said that the young wife had been 
deserted and would never see or hear from her 
Scotch baronet again. A sad time this for 
Glorianna, who soon brought into the world a 
second daughter. One day, however, there 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 207 

came a letter from the absent one with the news 
that a ship fitted for the special comfort of his 
wife would be in New York at a certain time 
and had been engaged to convey her to Scot- 
land in the best style possible. Shortly after- 
wards arrived a quantity of goods of elegant 
material, from which, her husband directed, 
Glorianna must have a suitable outfit made in 
New York. Servants came, too, who were 
charged with the duty of making all prepara- 
tions for this momentous journey as easy as 
possible for the young wife and mother. The 
lavishness of Mr. Sterling's care for his lovely 
wife even extended to an invitation and an 
outfit for Glorianna's sister, if she chose to 
make the journey. But this offer was declined, 
and Glorianna set sail, unaccompanied by any 
of her kith and kin, for her life across the sea. 

When the ship landed in Scotland, the wharf 
was found to be fairly crowded with carriages 
come to meet Mrs. Sterling. And after her ar- 
rival, Glorianna learned that a whole corps of 
governesses were in the house to teach her the 
accomplishments befitting the future lady of 
Sterling Castle. So, though she never returned 
to America or saw again any of her own folk — 
except two brothers, who some years later 
went over to make her a visit — she lived happy 
ever after, — and bore her husband twenty -two 
children. In 1791, she became Baroness Ster- 



208 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

ling. Playfair's Baronetage shows that one of 
her sons succeeded to the title, and that her 
descendants held important offices in Scotland 
as late as 1879. 

Save for Glorianna and Agnes Surriage all 
the belles of colonial times appear to have been 
widows; certainly they were seldom young 
girls, as happened a generation ago, or " the 
woman of forty ", as is often the case to-day. 
Mrs. Alice Morse Earle has humorously ex- 
pressed her wonder that any men were ever 
found in the first instance to marry a mere girl. 
Yet though so many widows ^ became brides, 
there were still vast numbers of them left. In 
1698 Boston was said to be " full of widows 
and orphans, and many of them very helpless 
creatures." No less than one-sixth of the com- 
municants of Cotton Mather's church were 
widows, and the bewildering array of widows 
among whom Judge Sewall had to choose, 
when confronted with the necessity of finding 
himself a new partner, has become a New Eng- 
land byword. 

Peter Sargent, who built the beautiful Prov- 
ince House in Boston, had married three 
widows before he died in 1714. And his second 
wife had been three times a widow before Peter 
married her! His third wife, a widow when 

^ The very first marriage that took place in New England was 
between a widower and a widow, Edward Winslow and Susanna 
White. This was on May 12, 1621. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 209 

she became Mrs. Sargent, outlived Peter and 
then outHved the man she later married. So 
that she was finally three times a widow. 

Women became " old maids " at an exceed- 
ingly early age in colonial New England. Hig- 
ginson wrote of one " antient maid " who was 
twenty -five, and John Dunton's classic " Virgin " 
was only twenty-six, though she had already 
reached the age to be called a "Thornback." 
" An old (or Superannuated) Maid," writes this 
gay Lothario, " is thought such a curse in Bos- 
ton as nothing can exceed it, and looked on as 
a Dismal Spectacle, yet she [Comfort Wilkins] 
by her Good Nature, Gravity and strict Vertue, 
convinces all that 'tis not her Necessity but 
her Choice that keeps her a Virgin. . . . She 
never disguises her self by the Gayetys of a 
Youthful Dress, and talks as little as she thinks 
of Love: She goes to no Balls or Dancing 
Match, as they do who go (to such Fairs) in 
order to meet with Chapmen. . . . Her looks, 
her Speech, her whole behaviour are so very 
chaste, that but once going to kiss her I thought 
she had blush'd to death." 

Widows made no difficulties about being 
kissed (see Judge Sewall on this point) and they 
were often willing to marry almost any decent 
man who paid court to them. Sometimes their 
courtship period was shockingly brief, as in the 
case of Honorable Charles Phelps of Vermont 



210 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

and a widow whom he made his wife after 
an acquaintance of but a single day! Mr. 
Phelps is characterized in the notice of his 
wedding as " a gentleman of uncommon polite- 
ness "; he appears to have been uncommonly 
impetuous as well. He was sixty at the time 
of his second wooing, had been bereft of his 
first wife only a few months, and had met the 
lady he so swiftly led to the altar while paying- 
court to her aunt. The older woman, after de- 
clining her suitor's proposal of marriage, ac- 
commodatingly informed him that she had 
visiting her just then a niece, another widow, 
to whom an offer of this kind might be more 
agreeable. She thereupon led in and intro- 
duced Mrs. Anstis Eustis Kneeland, aged 
thirty. 

'' The young lady, all covered with blushes, 
and trembling with apprehension, received," 
we read,^ " the salutation of an old gentleman, 
large and corpulent, six feet three inches in the 
clear, in full bottom wig, frizzed and powdered 
in the most approved style, either for the ju- 
dicial bench or ladies' drawing-room. The 
announcement of the question immediately 
followed. The lady turned pale. Her deli- 
cacy was shocked. With overpowered sensa- 
tions she begged to withdraw a moment. Her 
aunt also gently obtained leave of absence and 

1 In " Under a Colonial Roof-Tree," by Arria S. Huntington. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 211 

followed. But after a short consideration the 
ladies both returned. 

" ' Judge Phelps ', remarked the elder lady, 
* we are taken by surprise. The subject is deeply 
important. My niece, although favorably im- 
pressed, asks time to consider. She presumes 
upon your delicacy, and is assured that, if it 
at all corresponds with your gallantry, you 
will indulge her a short space for reflection, 
say one week, after which, if you will honor 
us with a call, my niece — we, I mean — will 
be better prepared.' 

" 'Preparation! Dearest madam, do me the 
favor to commit all preparation to my care. I 
am so happy in this respect that I have already 
hinted to a dear friend of mine, a Presbyterian 
minister — ' " 

To allow her niece to be married by a Pres- 
byterian was, however, so much more shocking 
to the match-maker than to allow her to be 
married immediately, that the lesser point was 
at once lost sight of — with the result that this 
daughter of the ancient and honorable family 
of Eustis in Boston was made Mrs. Phelps the 
very next day by a parson of her own choosing. 

An even more hasty alliance was that of Gov- 
ernor Richard Bellingham to Penelope Pelham, 
who has come down to us as a most upright and 
virtuous woman, even though her marriage did 
cause great scandal in the Boston of her day. 



212 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" The young gentlewoman," we read, " was ready 
to be contracted to a friend of his (Governor 
BeUingham), who lodged in his house and by 
his consent had proceeded so far with her, when 
on a sudden the governor treated with her 
and obtained her for himself. He excused it 
by the strength of his affection and that she 
was not absolutely promised to the other gen- 
tleman. Two errors more he committed upon it. 
1. That he would not have his contract pub- 
lished where he dwelt, contrary to an order of 
court. 2. That he married himself contrary 
to the constant practice of the country. The 
great inquest presented him for breach of order 
of court, and at the court following, on the 4th 
month, the secretary called him to answer the 
prosecution. But he not going off the bench, 
as the manner was, and but few of the magis- 
trates present, he put it off to another time, 
intending to speak with him privately and with 
the rest of the magistrates about the case, and 
accordingly he told him the reason why he did 
not proceed, viz., being not willing to command 
him publicly to go off the bench, and yet not 
thinking it fit he should sit as a judge when he 
was by law to answer as an offender. This he 
took ill and said he would not go off the bench 
except he were commanded." 

BeUingham was fifty at the time of this mar- 
riage, and the lady who precipitously became 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 213 

his wife twenty. A similarly arresting disparity 
in ages is to be found in the case of Governor 
Benning Wentworth and Martha Hilton, the 
maid-servant who became his wife. On this 
occasion, however, a clergyman of the Church 
of England officiated, that Reverend Arthur 
Browne of whom both Copley and Longfellow 
have left us pleasing pictures. 

The first girl married in Boston by a minister 
of the gospel ^ was Rebecca Rawson, whose 
story is as romantic — and as sad — as any in 
the annals of New England. The daughter of 
Edward Rawson, third secretary of the Massa- 
chusetts Colony, — who was himself a descend- 
ant of Sir Edward Rawson, Dorset, England, — 
Rebecca naturally thought herself quite fit to 
be the wife of a man who came courting her 
and who declared himself to be Sir Thomas 
Hale, Jr., nephew of Lord Chief Justice Hale. 
They were married July 1, 1679, " in the pres- 
ence of near forty witnesses, and being hand- 
somely furnished, sailed for England and safely 
arrived. 

" She went on shore in a dishabille," says 
the curious old document which preserves this 
moving tale, " leaving her trunks on board the 
vessel, and went to lodge with a relation of hers. 
In the morning early he [her husband] arose, 

1 After 1686 marriages were not infrequently performed by the 
clergy. 
I 



214 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

took the keys, and told her he would send her 
trunks on shore that she might be dressed be- 
fore dinner. He sent the trunks up, and she 
waited impatiently for the keys till one or two 
o'clock; but he not coming, she broke open 
the trunks, and to her inexpressible surprise 
she found herself stript of everything, and her 
trunks filled with combustible matter; on 
which her kinsman ordered his carriage, and 
they went to a place where she stopt with her 
husband the night before. She enquired for 
Sir Thomas Hale, Jr. ; they said he had not been 
there for some days. She said she was sure he 
was there the niglit before. They said Thomas 
Rumsey had been there with a young Lady, 
but was gone to his wife in Canterbury; and 
she saw him no more." ^ 

Thus abandoned, Rebecca^ set herself to dis- 
cover some means of income, finally supporting 
herself and the child which soon came, by " paint- 
ing on glass." So she struggled on for thirteen 
years, at the end of which time she determined 
to return to New England. Her child she left 
in the care of her sister in England, who had 
no children of her own, and embarked for Boston 
by way of Jamaica in a vessel which belonged 
to one of her uncles. The ship, with its pas- 
sengers and crew, was swallowed up June 9, 

' New England Historical and Genealogical Register, October, 
1849. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 215 

1692, in the great Port Royal earthquake. 
Whittier tells Rebecca's story in considerable 
detail in his entertaining little piece of imagina- 
tive writing, " Leaves from Margaret Smith's 
Journal in the Province of Massachusetts Bay." 
One English marriage custom, which the 
Puritans, to their honor, steadfastly refused to 
introduce into the New World, was that b}^ 
which children were married off, while still 
of tender age, for the sake of assuring to the 
families concerned a fortune that might be 
contingent. From a careful study made of the 
old court records in the town of Chester, Eng- 
land, it has been brought out that child-mar- 
riages, troth-plights, and the like, were ex- 
ceedingly common in the old country during 
the seventeenth century. Mary Hewitt of 
Dan ton Basset was wedded in 1669, when three 
years old. John Evelyn, in 1672, was present 
" at the marriage of Lord Arlington's only daugh- 
ter, a sweet child if there ever was any, aged 
five, to the Duke of Grafton." The story is 
told of one little bridegroom of three who was 
held up in the arms of an English clergyman 
and coaxed to repeat the words of the service. 
Before it was finished, the child said that he 
would learn no more of his lesson that day, 
but the parson answered: "You just speak a 
little more and then go play yon." But when 
Governor Endicott was approached to marry 



216 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

off, at the age of fifteen, little Rebecca Cooper, 
who had been left an orphan in Salem, and 
whom Governor Winthrop's sister, Madam 
Downing, desired for a daughter-in-law be- 
cause, as she said frankly, " the disposition 
of the mayde and her education with Mrs. 
Endicott are hopefuU, her person tollerable, 
and the estate very convenient ", he, as guard- 
ian of the child, firmly rejected the proposal: 
" for these grounds, first: The girle desires 
not to: 'marry as yet. 2ndlee: Shee confesseth 
(which is the truth) herselfe to be altogether 
yett unfitt for such a condition, shee beinge 
a verie girl and but 15 yeares of age. 3rdhe: 
Where the man was moved to her shee said 
shee could not like him. 4thlie: You know 
it would be of ill reporte that a girl because 
shee hath some estate should bee disposed of 
soe young, espetialie not having any parents 
to choose for her. fifthlie: I have some good 
hopes of the child's coming on to the best 
thinges." 

Governor Winthrop, to whom this letter was 
addressed, accepted the decision without more 
ado, and the match did not come off. But he 
was probably none the less convinced that a 
girl of fifteen was quite old enough to marry; 
he himself had been only seventeen when he 
first took upon himself the duties and respon- 
sibihties of a husband. But Winthrop was 




A WEDDING PARTY IN BOSTON IN 1756. 
From a tapestry owned by the American Anli(iuari;in .Society, Worcester, Mt 

See p. S31. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 217 

quite an extraordinary lover for his time, as 
some of his letters clearly show. 

He had inherited from his mother a nature 
of very unusual affectionateness, and he was 
much franker than most of his contemporaries 
in the expression of his impulses and emotions. 
Once when he was trying, in a letter to his wife, 
to be very resigned and spiritual-minded, he 
interrupts himself to exclaim to her: " The 
Love of this present World ! how it bewitches us 
& steales away our hearts from him who is the 
onely life & felicitye. O that we could delight 
in Christ our Lord & heavenly husband as we 
doe in each other & that his absence were like 
grievous to us ! " On the eve of his departure to 
America, he writes: "MY SWEET WIFE, 
The Lord hath oft brought us together with 
comfort when we have been long absent; and 
if it be good for us he will do so still. When I 
was in Ireland he brought us together again. 
When I was sick here in London he restored us 
together again. How many dangers, near 
death, hast thou been in thyself! and yet the 
Lord hath granted me to enjoy thee still. If 
he did not watch over us we need not go over 
sea to seek death or misery: we should meet it 
at every step, in every journey. And is not he 
a God abroad as well as at home? Is not his 
power and providence the same in New Eng- 
land as it hath been in Old England? My good 



218 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

wife, trust in the Lord, whora thou hast found 
faithful. He will be better to thee than any 
husband and will restore thy husband with ad- 
vantage. But I kiss my sweet wife and bless 
thee and all ours and rest Thine ever JO. WIN- 
THROP 

" February 14, 1629 — Thou must be my 
valentine. ..." 

One more significant extract from Winthrop's 
letters just before sailing. From his ship, de- 
tained near the Isle of Wight, the great man 
wrote: " Mondays and Fridays, at five of the 
clock at night, we shall meet in spirit till we 
meet in person." 

Winthrop appears to have been emulating 
here the tryst between Imogen and Posthumus. 
For Imogen, it will be remembered, complains 
that she and her lover had been torn apart 

" Ere I could tell him, 
How I would think on him at certain hours 
Such thovights, and such; 

... or have charg'd him. 
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, 
To encounter me with orisons, for then, 
I am in heaven for him." 

This Puritan Posthumus was, however, in 
his forty-third year, while his Imogen was 
thirty-nine and had borne him several chil- 
dren. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 219 

By 1759 men in search of wives were adopt- 
ing the " matrimonial advertisement " to help 
them in their quest. Thus, in the Boston Eve- 
ning Post of February 23 in that year, may be 
found the following naive notice: 

" To the Ladies. Any young Lady between 
the Age of Eighteen and twenty three of a 
Midling Stature; brown Hair, regular Features 
and a Lively Brisk Eye: Of Good Morals & 
not Tinctured with anything that may Sully 
so Distinguishable a Form posessed of 3 or 
400£ entirely at her own Disposal and where 
there will be no necessity of going Through the 
tiresome Talk of addressing Parents or Guard- 
ians for their consent: Such a one, by leaving a 
Line directed for A. W. at the British Coffee 
House in King Street appointing where an 
Interview may be had will meet with a Person 
who flatters himself he shall not be thought 
Disagreeable by any Lady answering the above 
description. N. B. Profound Secrecy will be 
observ'd. No Trifling Answers will be re- 
garded." 

Evidently this advertiser had ante-nuptial 
debts of which he wished to be free. Debts 
which a woman brought with her from a pre- 
vious alliance were sloughed off, in old New 
England, by the very curious custom known as 
smock-marriages, or shift-marriages. It was 
thought that if a bride were married " in her 



220 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

shift on the king's highway ", no creditor could 
pursue her further, and accordingly many a 
woman was so married to a second husband. 
Usually, for modesty's sake, this ceremony 
took place in the evening. Later the bride was 
permitted on these trying occasions to take 
her stand in a closet. 

One of these closet marriages — that of Major 
Moses Joy to Widow Hannah Ward, which oc- 
curred in Newfane, Vermont, in February, 1789 
— is graphically described by W. C. Prime in 
his entertaining book, " Along New England 
Roads." The bride in this instance stood, 
with no clothing on, within a closet and held out 
her hand to the major through a diamond- 
shaped hole in the door. When the two had 
been pronounced man and wife, she came forth 
from the closet, gorgeously attired in wedding 
garments, which had been thoughtfully placed 
there for her use. The story of a marriage in 
which the bride, entirely unclad, left her room 
by a window at night and donned her wedding 
garments standing on the top round of a high 
ladder is also related by Mr. Prime. Hall's 
" History of Eastern Vermont " tells of a mar- 
riage in Westminster of that State in which 
the Widow Lovejoy, while nude and hidden in a 
chimney recess behind a curtain, took one Asa 
Averill to be her spouse. Smock-marriages on 
the public highway were occurring in York, 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 221 

Maine, as late as 1774, if we may trust the " His- 
tory of Wells and Kennebunkport " ; Widow 
Mary Bradley, who, clad only in her shift, un- 
derwent this ordeal on a bitter February day, 
excited such pity in the officiating minister that 
he threw his coat over her. A curious variation 
of this smock-marriage custom is recorded in 
the " Life of Gustavus Vasa ", the case being 
that of a man who had been condemned to 
death on the gallows but was hberated because 
a woman, clad only in her shift, came forward 
and married him just as he was about to undergo 
execution. 

As soon as a young man had won from the 
girl of his choice her promise to be his wife, he 
set himself to the task of building " a nest for 
his bird." Second only to the wedding itself 
in hilarity was the " raising ", in which all of 
his neighbors and friends assisted, and of which 
games and feasting played an important part. 
A very old custom was for the bride elect to 
drive one of the pins in the frame of her future 
home. Thus, in a peculiar sense, the house was 
hers as well as her husband's. It is related of a 
Windsor, Connecticut, bride that though she 
broke her engagement because her affianced 
partook of more liquor than he could well man- 
age on the day of their '' raising ", she made all 
quite right by marrying a young man of the 
same name who purchased from her former 



222 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

lover the house in which she had driven a 
pin. 

Another curious old custom connected with 
getting married was that of " stealing the 
bride." Those of a couple's acquaintance who 
were not invited to the wedding would some- 
times combine, go stealthily to the house where 
the ceremony was being performed, and watch- 
ing for a favorable opportunity, would rush in, 
seize the bride, carry her out, place her on a 
horse behind one of the party, and race off with 
her to a neighboring tavern, where music, sup- 
per, and so on, had previously been bespoken. 
If the capture and flight were successful, and the 
captors succeeded in reaching their rendezvous 
at the tavern without being overtaken by the 
wedding party, the night was spent in dancing 
and feasting at the expense of the bridegroom. 

Not infrequently a man suffered grievously 
in the attempt to comply with the sartorial 
demands of the girl he desired to win. A fairly 
correct idea of the fashions of the time and of 
what the woman with standards of style de- 
manded in the opposite sex may be gleaned 
from the following contribution to the New 
York Mercury, under date of January 31, 1757. 
The writer, who appears to have courted in 
vain the lady of his heart's desire, writes as 
follows : 

" I am a bachelor turned of thirty, in easy 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 223 

circumstances, and want nothing but a wife to 
make me as happy as my neighbours. 

" I have long admired a young lady, who, I 
can with great propriety, call Miss Modish; 
though for her unreasonable conduct to me she 
deserves to have her real name exposed in capi- 
tals. She has a mind capable of every improve- 
ment and graces of her sex; and were it not for 
an excessive fondness for gaity and the reign- 
ing amusements of the town, would be unex- 
ceptionably lovely. 

" To this fair one I have most obsequiously 
paid my addresses for these last four years; 
and had I been a Beau, or she less a Belle, I 
should undoubtedly long since have succeeded; 
for fashions, cards and assemblies were the 
only things in which we did not perfectly agree. 
But whenever these were the subjects of con- 
versation we were as certainly ruffled and out 
of temper. On these occasions she would tell 
me, * she was astonished I would dispute with 
her when every genteel person was of her opinion. 
That one might be as well out of the world as out of 
the mode. For her part, she would never think 
of marrying a man who was so obstinately awk- 
ward and impohte, let his other accomplish- 
ments be ever so refined. I dressed like a clown 
and hardly ever waited on her to a public di- 
version; and indeed when I did she was in pain 
for me, I behaved so queer. She had no notion 



224 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

at her age, of sacrificing all the dear pleasures 
of routs, hops and quadrille for a philosophical 
husband. No, if I expected to make myself 
agreeable to her I must learn to dress gallant 
and be smart.'' Now, truth is, I can't dance 
and have an unconquerable aversion to fop- 
pery. In order to form me to her taste. Miss 
Modish has always most obstinately insisted 
on my complying with every idle fashion that 
has been introduced since my acquaintance 
with her, under the severe penalty of never 
hoping for her love if I did not implicitly obey. 
This, with infinite reluctance and mortification, 
I have been under the hard necessity of doing. 
I remember, when high brimmed hats were in 
the mode, she insisted on an elevation of my 
beaver of near half an inch with a fierce Cave 
Null cock. The taste changed, and she would 
hardly allow me enough to protect my phiz 
from the inclemency of the weather. My coat, 
when coatees flourished, was reduced to the 
size of a dwarf's, and then again increased to 
the longitude of a surtout. The cuffs in the 
winter were made open, for the benefit of taking 
in the cool north weather; in the summer again 
they were close to prevent the advantage of 
the refreshing breeze. In the summer I was 
smothered with a double cravat: in the winter, 
relieved again with a single cambric neckcloth. 
It would be tedious to repeat the many sur- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 225 

prising and ridiculous changes I underwent in 
the outward man; let it suffice to observe that 
my wig, ruffles, shoes and every little particular, 
not excepting my breeches, have shared the 
same unaccountable metamorphosis, all which 
grievous foppery, my excessive fondness for her 
made me suffer with Christian resignation; 
but at last she has fairly exliausted my patience, 
and we have now come to an open rupture, the 
occasion of which was this: We happily fell 
into the old topic of my want of taste and breed- 
ing. ' You will always,^ says she, ' be an old- 
fashioned creature.^ (I had unluckily called her 
My dear.) * Lord, can't you take pattern after 
Mr. Foppington? How happy must a lady be 
in such an admirer! He's always easy and good- 
humoured, and pays the finest compliments of 
any gentleman in the universe! How elegantly 
he dresses ! And then he sings like an angel and 
dances to perfection; and as for his hair, I 
never saw anything so exquisitely fine. Surely 
the hair is the most valuable part of a man.' 

" From this teasing introduction she took 
occasion to insist on my wearing my hair; ob- 
serving that I could not refuse it since I saw 
how pleasing it would be to her. I used all the 
arguments I could to divert her from this unrea- 
sonable request; but she peremptorily declared 
she would never speak to me again if I denied 
her so small a favor; it was an insult on the 



226 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

prerogative of her sex and a convincing proof 
that I neither loved her nor merited her esteem. 
I remonstrated, in vain, that even if I inchned 
to flay the fool, and put my head, which, as it 
happened, I could not well spare, into the hand 
of Monsieur Piermont, I was well assured that 
all the skill and industry of that artist would 
never change it from its native red, or form a 
single curl, for that ever since I was six years 
old, it had been condemned to be close shorn, 
as incapable of affording a creditable covering 
to my pericranium. In a passion she desired 
never to see me more: she would not put up 
with such contradictions in any gentleman who 
pretended to be her admirer." 

Yet it is altogether probable that he began 
at once to let his hair grow and was soon 
using curl-papers at night and the curling- 
tongs by day in an endeavor to achieve an 
effect of which his mistress would approve. 

That quite as much trouble sometimes en- 
sued when the lady suddenly required that her 
lover wear a periwig as when, as in this case, 
she asked that he should cease to wear one, we 
learn from the Diary of Samuel Sewall, who, 
in his old age, was almost forced to take to 
periwigs — which he abominated — in his efforts 
to win the widow of his choice. 

Dying for love, or living a life of seclusion 
because of a broken heart, was a source of pride 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 227 

in old New England, even among men. A 
certain Doctor Jones of Ilollis, New Hampshire, 
reputed to have been a native of England and 
the son of a wealthy British military officer, 
withdrew to a lonely cabin because he could 
not marry the girl of his choice and never ven- 
tured forth save when clad in a long, plaid 
dressing-gown and wearing a hat with a mourn- 
ing weed. The record that Jones caused to be 
placed on his tombstone is 

MEMENTO MORI 

ERECTED 

IN MEMORY 

OF DOCTOR 

JOHN JONES 

Who departed this life July 4th, 1796, in the 
65 year of his age. 

In youth he was a scholar bright. 
In learning he took great delight. 
He was a Major's only son. 
It was for love he was undone. 

A similarly sad tale is suggested by the elab- 
orately scrolled gravestone in the lower ceme- 
tery of Hopkinton, New Hampshire. The in- 
scription on this stone, which no visitor to this 
quaint and picturesque old village ever fails to 
search out, is as follows: 



228 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

In testimony of sincere affection, 
This humble monument was erected by 

E. DARLING, 

to inform the passing stranger that beneath rests 
the head of his beloved 

ELIZA W. PARKER, 

youngest daughter of Lt. E. P., who died of con- 
sumption May 11, 1820 

Mi. 18. 

Invidious Death! How dost thou rend asunder 
The bonds of nature and the ties of love. 
In Coelo optamus convenire. 
We know that her Redeemer liveth. 

On the left of this inscription, as the reader 
faces the stone, is the perpendicularly chiseled 
sentiment: 

" Her eulogy is written on the hearts of her friends " ; 

on the right, another line: 

" Her friends were — ALL who knew her." 

The Baptist burial-ground in East Green- 
wich, Rhode Island, contains a stone behind 
which lies still another story of a broken heart. 
It reads: 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 229 

In Memory of 

JACOB CAMPBELL 

Son of Archibald Campbell 

Attorney At Law. 

Who Departed This Life March 5th, 1788, in the 

28th Year of his Age. 

*' Oh faithful Memory may thy lamp illume 
The sacred sepulchre with radiance clear, 
Soft plighted love shall rest upon his tomb. 
And friendship o'er it shed the fragrant tear." 

This stone was erected by Eliza Russell, who 
becarae attached to young Campbell during 
his undergraduate daj^s in Rhode Island Col- 
lege (Brown University), from which he was 
graduated in 1783. They had never married 
because he was consumptively inclined; but 
Eliza nursed her lover until death came to his 
relief, and after that retired to a darkened 
room where she stayed for the rest of her life. 
Only those who could talk about him were 
admitted to her presence, and the sickness, 
suffering, and death of Campbell were the only 
topics on which she would speak. ^ 

Then, as now, however, marriages which 
really came off w^ere much more common than 
those whose consummation was thus tragically 
prevented. The diaries of the day are full of 

^ Updike's " Memoirs of the Rhode Island Bar." 



230 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

allusions to nuptial celebrations, though they 
frequently fail to go into such details as we 
would be glad to see. That genial society man, 
John Rowe, notes in his diary, under date of 
November 8, 1764 : " Mr. Thos. Amory mar- 
ried Miss Betty Coffin this evening; there was 
a great company at old Mr. Coffin's on the occa- 
sion, and a great dance." January 13, 1767, 
he records " a wedding frohck " at John Er- 
ving, Jr.'s, where he " had the pleasure to dance 
with the bride." His longest account of a wed- 
ding is that of February 2, 1768. It is as fol- 
lows: 

*' This morning Miss Polly Hooper was mar- 
ried in Trinity Church to Mr. John Russell 
Spence by the Revd. Mr. Walter. A great 
concourse of People attended on the Occasion. 
Dined at Mrs. Hooper's with her, the new 
Bridegroom & Bride, Mr. Thos.. Apthorp, Mr. 
Robt. Hallowell, Miss Nancy Boutineau, Miss 
Dolly Murray, Mrs. Murray, Bridemen & 
Bridemaids, Mr. Murray, Mrs. Murray, Mr. 
Stephen Greenleaf, Mrs. Greenleaf, the Revd. 
Mr. Walter, Major Bayard, Mrs. Bayard, Mrs. 
Rowe, Mr. Thos. Hooper, Mr. John Hooper, 
Mrs. Eustis, Nath. Apthorp. In the afternoon 
wee were joyned by Mr. Inman, Miss Suky, 
John Apthorp Esq. & lady, Dr. Bulfinch & lady, 
Mr. Amiel, Mr. John Erving & lady. Wee all 
drank Tea, spent the evening there, had a 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 231 

Dance, wee were merry & spent the whole day 
very clever & agreeable." ^ 

It would have been pleasant to know what 
the bride wore on this occasion, of what the 
collation ^ consisted, and what presents were re- 
ceived from the distinguished guests. " A white 
satin night go and " is the somewhat startling 
costume attributed by Anna Green Winslow 
to a blue-blooded Boston bride of 1773. But 
a nightgown was not in those days a garment 
to wear when sleeping; that was called a rail. 
The woman's nightgown was a loose, flowing 
garment resembling the " tea-gown " of the 
late Victorian era; the nightgown of men was 
like the dressing-gown of our own day. 

Though we have no picture of Polly Hooper's 
wedding party, we have one, herewith repro- 
duced, of another Boston wedding celebrated 
about this same time. One interesting item 
here to be noted is the pocket hoops worn by 
the women. No fashion that has come down to 
us is more ugly than this of pannier-shaped 
humps on each side of the hips. They were 
very greatly the vogue in 1750, however, and 
again in 1780. One portrait of Juliana Penn, 
daughter-in-law of William Penn, shows her in 



1 " Letters and Diary of John Rowe." W. B. Clarke Company, 
Boston. 

2 John Andrews mentions " cold ham, cold roast beef, cake, 
cheese, etc.," as a " very pretty " wedding collation for other nup- 
tials of about this time. 



232 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

pocket hoops which stand out a foot and a half 
horizontally from the waist! Only mildly de- 
forming in comparison with this extreme were 
the hoops which first came into fashion with 
the opening of the eighteenth century, and 
which, though regarded as trenching on mo- 
rality, were quickly tolerated even by the most 
impeccable of Puritans. When William Pep- 
perell, in 1723, took to wife Judge Sewall's 
granddaughter, Mary Hirst, a hooped petti- 
coat was among the gifts made by the groom 
to the bride. Hoops, in spite of their ugliness, 
seem to have been popular with eighteenth 
century ladies who were " getting married." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 233 



CHAPTER VI 

SETTING UP HOUSEKEEPING 

THERE was no wedding-trip in the early 
days, the newly married pair proceeding 
at once to the business of setting up 
housekeeping. The home to which the proud 
young husband conducted his strong-souled 
bride was at first a rude log cabin or a cellar 
dug in the hillside. But these temporary habi- 
tations were soon followed by small wooden 
houses which, though crude in construction, 
met suflSciently well the actual needs of the 
time. 

During the first quarter-century of history 
in the New World, scarcely any enduring 
houses were built in the country districts; only 
in mercantile centers like Boston, Portsmouth, 
Providence, and Newport did people erect 
houses meant to be permanent. A very inter- 
esting fact concerning such houses has lately 
been established by Henry B. Worth ^ of New 
Bedford: that in a given period all New Eng- 
land communities adopted the same style and 

^ Register Lynn Historical Society, Vol. XIV. 



234 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

shape of dwelling. Thus the approximate age 
of any surviving old house can readily be de- 
termined by classifying its architectural style 
and finding out to which period that style be- 
longs. 

Of course, in the more remote sections, a 
particular style would linger for many years 
after it had been abandoned in the larger com- 
munities; Nantucket, for instance, was build- 
ing lean-to dwellings forty years after the Massa- 
chusetts Bay people had advanced beyond this 
primitive form of home. And occasionally an 
enterprising householder, wishing to give his 
bride something better than any other New 
England bride had ever had, would anticipate 
a style which was later to become well-known. 
But, for the most part, the simple rule holds 
and may be profitably applied by those poking 
about among old houses in New England, — 
houses which, thus tested, are frequently found 
to be considerably less old than their fond 
owners have believed. 

During all the first period of our architectural 
history, houses had only one room. The Potter 
house in Westport, Massachusetts, built in 
1667, was a one-story dwelling made with a 
stone end and having a single room eighteen 
feet square with a loft under the roof. In 
Rhode Island this was the prevailing style for 
a generation before 1660. By the time of King 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 235 

Philip's War, however, two-story houses had 
there come into general use, the upper story 
being devoted to sleeping-rooms, while on the 
first floor was a single room which served as 
kitchen, dining-room, and parlor. 

The living equipment of such a home as this 
may be gathered from the inventory of John 
Smith, a Providence miller, who died late in 
the seventeenth century. John had a wife 
and ten children, and he left a landed estate 
of more than three hundred acres. Yet his 
house consisted of two rooms — a *' lower 
Roome " and a " Chamber." In the latter 
apartment the only pieces of furniture were 
*' two bed studs with the bed and beding to 
them belonging." Li the room below were 
one bedstead and its furnishings, four chairs, 
" a chest with the Book of Martirs in it, and 
an old Bible Some lost and some of it torne." 
Nor were the kitchen utensils much more im- 
pressive: a brass kettle, a small copper kettle, 
" an old broken Copper Kettle, a frying pan, 
a spitt, and a small Grater, a paile and a Cann, 
and 3 Iron Potts." For tableware there were 
" two Small pewter platters, two Basons & 
three porengers, two quart Glasses, severall 
wooden dishes, a wooden Bottle, some old 
trenchers and foure old Spoones." Yet this 
man's estate was valued at ninety pounds, and 
he owned, besides, live stock to the extent of 



236 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

one steer, two heifers, two bulls, five horses 
and "16 swine great and small together." 
Colonel Nicholas Power, also of Providence, 
who died about half a century later, and whose 
style of living was thought to be sumptuous, has 
come down to us in history by reason of the 
fact that his house was provided with a " dine- 
ing room." 

Outside of Rhode Island, the lean-to was 
long the dominant type of New England dwell- 
ing-house. Between 1675 and 1775, however, 
that is, from the end of King Philip's War 
until the outbreak of the Revolution, such 
houses were frequently amplified so as to in- 
clude a second ground-floor room, which was 
used as a parlor. After the Revolution, the 
full four-apartment house became common, a 
house, that is, which provided a room for each 
of the four household purposes of cooking, 
eating, sleeping, and holding social intercourse. 
Any house ^.nus lavishly planned could not 
have been biult before the Revolution, ex- 
perts on this subject declare, unless it stands in 
some wealthy center. 

By the very nature of its construction — its 
long sloping roof giving incomparable protec- 
tion against the north winds of winter — the 
lean-to is the type of old New England house 
of which most examples still remain. These 
houses always faced south, regardless of the re- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 237 

lation which might thus be estabhshed to the 
adjacent road. Before 1670, having one room 
in the first story, they had the chimney at the 
end. When an additional apartment was de- 
sired, the house was simply doubled, thus pro- 
ducing a structure with the chimney in the 
center. 

During the prosperous period which pre- 
ceded the French and Indian Wars, the gam- 
brel-roofed house came into popular favor. 
Many houses built one hundred and seventy- 
five years ago in this style are still in existence, 
and in recent years the design has been enthu- 
siastically revived. A beautiful example of 
former days was that in which Oliver Wendell 
Holmes was born, and which stood, until 1883, 
on the site now occupied by the Law School of 
Harvard University. Holmes once spoke of his 
birthplace as " stately enough for college dig- 
nitaries and scholarly clergymen ", but not by 
any means " one of those Tory Episcopal- 
church-goer's strongholds, . . . not a house for 
his Majesty's Counsellors or the Right Rev- 
erend successor of Him who had not where to 
lay his head." By which he meant that it was 
not in the Craigie House, or Abthorp House 
class. 

The Dutch-cap house, having sometimes a 
central chimney and in other cases two chim- 
neys, was chosen as the model for many homes 



238 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

built by New Englanders of ample means a 
few years before and after 1800. Such houses 
often had a fine parapet rail entirely surround- 
ing the roof. But a powerful rival to the Dutch- 
cap dwelling soon appeared in the rectangular, 
double, two-story house, which had a central 
hallway extending from front to rear, with two 
massive chimneys on each side. Between 1790 
and 1812 this comfortable, commodious, and 
durable type of house was the controlling style 
of home in the big towns of New England; 
after that, it flourished in many country sec- 
tions. Subsequent to 1826, substantial dwell- 
ings built on the generous lines of the Warner 
House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, multi- 
plied apace, thus contributing notably to the 
dignity and impressiveness of many towns in 
southern New England. This Warner House 
does not lend itself to Mr. Worth's simple 
method of classification; for it was built nearly 
a century ^ before its type became dominant. 
Similarly discouraging to a lover of general- 
izations is the stone mansion, built in 1636, at 
Newbury, Massachusetts, by John Spencer, 
who was at one time governor of the Newport, 
Rhode Island, colony. The interior of this 
house closely resembles spacious English man- 
sions which date from the middle of the six- 

1 The Warner House is made of bricks and was begun by Captain 
Archibald Macphaedris in 1718; it was completed in 1723. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 239 

teenth century. So large and roomy as to be 
capable of holding a great number of people 
seated, it has an enormous chimney, solid 
beams of white oak, great window-seats and 
a vast kitchen — all of which show that the 
house was designed for people of breeding and 
wealth. Particularly impressive is the porch 
fagade, with its niche over the rounded portal 
pediment, in which it was doubtless the in- 
tention to place the bust of some revered an- 
cestor of the Spencers. 

Of the first home of the greatest of New Eng- 
land governors, Winthrop, no trace remains 
to-day. All that we know definitely about this 
house is where it stood. The Book of Posses- 
sions, compiled in 1643, or a year or two later, 
contains the original entries of the earliest re- 
corded divisions of land in the town of Boston 
and is, in some sort, the foundation of all 
titles of real estate within the old-time limits. 
This defines for us the spot on which Gov- 
ernor Winthrop decided to plant his home, a 
choice undoubtedly determined by the spring 
of water that bubbled up and overflowed just 
to the north of it, near the old South Meeting- 
house; this was probably " the excellent 
spring " to which Winthrop 's attention was 
called by Mr. Blackstone when sohcited to 
move from Charlestown, where water was 
scarce. In making a conveyance of this prop- 



240 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

erty (in 1643), the governor described it as 
" that my lott or parcel of land in Boston afore- 
said called the Greene lyeing by the Spring." 
From this home, at the corner of the present 
Washington Street and Spring Lane, the great 
and good man chosen to be the head of the 
little company of Puritans wrote to his wife, 
on March 28, 1631, " I praise God, I want noth- 
ing but thee and the rest of my family." Like 
many a later American immigrant, Winthrop 
made a home in the New World before he felt 
free to send across the sea for the one woman 
who had the power to render that home happy. 
With the help of imagination and the exist- 
ing records, it is possible to picture roughly this 
home in which, when Mrs. Winthrop and the 
children arrived in November, 1631, the First 
Family of New England set up housekeeping. 
That the house was built of wood we know; 
and it was probably two stories high, with gar- 
rets; its end was toward the main street, its 
front faced a garden that had been made on 
the south, and its rear was on Spring Lane. 
In time an orchard was set out on the eastern 
half of the land, a row of buttonwood trees was 
planted parallel with the street, and there was 
even a lawn — which gave it a bright and 
cheerful appearance. Lawns appear to have 
been rare; so that " The Green " was a distin- 
guishing name for Winthrop's homestead. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 241 

Very simple and homely was the life lived 
under this modest roof-tree. Doctor Ellis 
says: "After the arrival of the colonists, not 
one of them, however gentle his degree in 
England, was free from the necessity of manual 
labor in the field, the forest, and in building and 
providing for a home. The governor's wife 
made and baked her own batch of bread, and 
from her dwelling, near the site of the Old South 
Church, would take pail in hand and go down 
to fill it from the spring that still flows under 
the basement of the Post Office." 

Concerning the second Boston home of the 
Winthrops, on almost this same site, it is 
possible to gain quite a clear idea from inven- 
tories which are still extant. That there was 
a parlor, hall, study, kitchen, and entry (proba- 
bly in the rear) on the ground floor of this house 
is very evident from these documents; and up 
one flight of stairs were to be found a parlor- 
chamber, hall-chamber, and porch chamber, 
with above these " a garret over the parlor ", 
and " a garret over the hall." This hall was 
some such room as English country magistrates 
use for the transaction of public business, and 
probably served also as a dining and living 
room; it is not to be confused with an entrance 
hall, usually to be found only in the rear of very 
old houses and always called an " entry." 

From the inventory left by Governor The- 



242 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

ophilus Eaton of the New Haven Colony, when 
he died in 1657, we may gain an excellent idea 
of how the hving-room in a magistrate's house 
was furnished. For in the Eaton hall were to 
be found: 

A drawing Table & a round table £l. 18s. 

A cubberd & 2 long formes, 14s. 

A cubberd cloth & cushions, 13s.; 4 setwork 
cushions 12s. £l. 5. 

6 greene cushions, 12s; a greate chair with needle- 
worke. 13s. £1.5. 

2 high chaires set work, 20s; 4 high stooles set 
worke, 26s 8d, £6. 8. 2. 

4 lowe chaires set work, 6s 8d, £l. 6. 8. 

2 lowe stooles set worke, 10s. 

2 Turkey Carpette, £2; 6 high joyne stooles, 6s. 
£2. 6. 

A pewter cistern & candlestick, 4s. 

A pr of great brass Andirons, 12s. 

A pr of smal. Andirons, 6s 8d. 

A pr of doggs, 2s 6d. 

A pr of tongues fire pan & bellowes, 7s. 

These forms and stools of various heights 
took the place of chairs, which were not very 
plentiful in New England thus early, the " pew- 
ter cistern " held water or wine, and in the 
" cubberd " were kept the pewter plates used 
daily on the " drawing table." Pewter was in 
universal use in America until the Revolution, 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 243 

when porcelain came to take its place. The 
" garnish " of pewter, by which was meant a 
set of pewter platters or chargers and dishes, was 
a source of great pride to all New Englanders, 
and the trade of the pewterer was held to be a 
very influential and respectable one. Henry 
Shrimpton, a Boston merchant who had made 
a fortune in pewter, was so proud of the source of 
his wealth that when his days of opulence ar- 
rived, he had a great kettle placed on the top 
of his house as a kind of patent of nobility. 

To set up housekeeping without pewter would 
have been deemed preposterous in the eight- 
eenth century. But a great many other things 
were required, too. The kind of wedding out- 
fit a bride, who was the well-beloved daughter 
of a fairly wealthy father, had to have at this 
time, cannot be better indicated than by quo- 
ting the list of house-furnishings which Judge 
Sewall ordered from England in 1720,^ when his 
daughter Judith was married. It reads thus: 

Curtains and Vallens for a Bed with Counterpane 
Head Cloth and Tester made of good yellow waterd 
worsted camlet with Triming well made and Bases 
if it be the Fashion. Send also of the same Camlet 
and Triming as may be enough to make Cushions 
for the Chamber chairs. 

> See also the list, three pages long, " Household Goods for the 
Setting-out of a Bride in 1758," quoted in the appendix of Jane 
de Forest Shelton's " Salt Box House." 



244 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

A good fine large Chintz Quilt well made. 

A true Looking Glass of Black Walnut Frame of 
the Newest Fashion if the Fashion be good, as good 
as can be bought for five or six pounds. 

A second Looking Glass as good as can be bought 
for four or five pounds same kind of frame. 

A Duzen of good Black Walnut Chairs fine Cane 
with a Couch. 

A Duzen of Cane Chairs of a Different Figure and 
a great Chair for a Chamber; all black Walnut. 

One bell-metal Skillet of two Quarts, one ditto 
one Quart. 

One good large Warming Pan bottom and cover 
fit for an Iron handle. 

Four pair of strong Iron Dogs with Brass heads 
about 5 or 6 shillings a pair. 

A Brass Hearth for a Chamber with Dogs Shovel 
Tongs & Fender of the newest Fashion (the Fire is 
to ly upon Iron). 

A strong Brass Mortar That will hold about a 
Quart with a Pestle. 

Two pair of large Brass sliding Candlesticks about 
4 shillings a Pair. 

Two pair of large Brass Candlesticks not sliding 
of the newest Fashion about 5 or 6 shillings a pair. 

Four Brass Snuffers with stands. 

Six small strong Brass Chafing dishes about 4 
shillings apiece. 

One Brass basting Ladle; one larger Brass Ladle. 

One pair Chamber Bellows with Brass Noses. 

One small hair Broom sutable to the Bellows. 

One Duzen hard-metal Pewter Porringers. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 245 

Four Duzen Small glass Salt Cellars of white 
glass; Smooth not wrought, and without a foot. 

A Duzen of good Ivory-hafted Knives and 
Forks. 

The pewter porringers were for the little 
grandchildren, whom Judge Sewall doubtless 
already saw, in his mind's eye, at supper in Ju- 
dith's nursery. These porringers always had 
pretty handles and so admirably combined 
utility and beauty. 

Among the really wealthy, pewter was, of 
course, only a kitchen necessity, and was often 
arranged on a dresser which occupied the place 
of honor in the big room where good things of the 
table were prepared. The pewter owned by 
William Burnet, who came to Boston as royal 
governor July 13, 1728, was valued at £100 
2s 6d. 

Many a dainty concoction was doubtless 
prepared in these utensils by the ladies of this 
governor's household, for cooking was reck- 
oned among the necessary female accomplish- 
ments of the day. There were plenty of cook- 
books on the market, however, for brides whose 
home training had been neglected. In 1761 
we find advertised " The Director Or Young 
Woman's Best Companion ", which contained 
" about three hundred receipts in Cookery, 
Pastiy, Preserving, Candying, Pickling, Col- 



246 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

laring, Physick, and Surgery." This compre- 
hensive volume also gave instructions for 
marketing, directions for carving, and " Bills 
of Fare for Every Month in the year." A 
little later appeared " The Complete Housewife, 
or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion ", 
with " upwards of six hundred of the most ap- 
proved Receipts of Cookery, Pastry, Confec- 
tionery, Preserving, Pickles, Cakes, Creams, 
Jellies, Made Wines, Cordials, with Copper 
Plates curiously Engraven for the regular Dis- 
position or placing of the various Dishes and 
Courses, and also Bills of Fare for every month 
in the year." All this sounds astonishingly 
modern. And even more amazing is it to en- 
counter, in a Colonial newspaper, the prototype 
of the " household budget " supposedly sacred 
to " domestic science " of the twentieth cen- 
tury. Yet the Boston News Letter of Novem- 
ber 18, 1728, prints a careful estimate of what 
it should cost to keep eight persons in " Families 
of Midling Figure who bear the Character of 
being Genteel." And from the context it is evi- 
dent that this " scheam of expense " is intended 
to refute other " scheams " previously published 
— one of which had rashly named two hundred 
and fifty pounds as the entire annual outlay 
necessary to such housekeeping. 

The entries of the November contribution 
are: 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 247 

For Diet. For.one Person a Day 

1 Breakfast Id. a Pint of Milk 2d 03 

2 Dinner. Pudding Bread meat Roots 
Pickles Vinegar Salt and Cheese 09 

N. B. In this article of the Dinner I would include 
all the Raisins Currants Suet Flour Eggs Cran- 
berries Apples & where there are children all 
their Intermeal Eatings throughout the whole 
Year. And I think a Gentleniair cannot well 
dine his family at a lower ratg than this 

3 Supper As the Breakfast . . ./. 03 

4 Small Beer for the Who|e Day Winter 

& Summer ) X}/^ 

N. B. In this article of the Beer I would likewise 
include all the Molasses used in the Family 
not only in Brewing but on other Occasions. 

For one Person a Day in all Is. 43/2^ 

For Whole Family lis 

For the Whole Family 365 days. .£ 200 15s. 
For Butter. 2 Firkins at 68 lb. 

apiece, 16d. a lb £ 9 Is 

For Sugar. Cannot be less than 
10s a Month or 4 weeks espe- 
cially when there are children £ 6 10s 
For Candles but 3 a Night Sum- 
mer & Winter for Ordinary & 
Extraordinary occasions at 

15d for 9 in the lb £ 7 12s 01 

For Sand 20s. Soap 40s. Washing 
Once in 4 weeks at 3s. a time 
with 3 Meals a Day at 2s. 
more £ 6 5s. 



248 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

For One Maids Wages £ 10 

For Shoes after the Rate of each 3 
Pair in a year at 9s. a Pair for 
7 Persons, the Maid finding 
her own £ 9 09s 



In all £ 249 12s 5d 



No House Rents Mentioned nor Bying Carting 
Pyling or Sawing Fire wood. 

No Coffee Tea nor Chocolate 

No Wine nor Cyder nor any other Spirituous 
Liquor 

No Pipes Tobacco Spice Nor Sweetmeats 

No Hospitality or Occasional Entertaining either 
Gentlemen Strangers Relatives or Friends 

No Acts of Charity nor Contributions for Pious 
Uses 

No Pocket Expenses either for Horse Hire Trav- 
elling or Convenient Recreations 

No Postage for Letters or Numberless other Oc- 
casions 

No Charges of Nursing 

No Schooling for Children 

No Buying of Books of any Sort or Pens Ink & 
Paper 

No Lyings In 

No Sickness, Nothing to Apothecary or Doctor 

Nor Buying Mending or Repairing Household 
Stuff or Utensils 

Nothing to the Simstress nor to the Taylor nor to 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 249 

the Barber, nor to the Hatter nor to the shopkeeper 
& Therefore no Cloaths. 

The figures here quoted are of far less value 
to-day than is the insight which the " scheam " 
affords us as to how a genteel New England 
family of moderate income lived and spent its 
money nearly two centuries ago. 

In the large towns, and where the table to be 
supplied was that of people of means, there was 
a good deal of variety in the food served and in 
the manner of its preparation. " They have 
not forgotten," Josselyn wrote, " the English 
fashion of stirring up their appetites with va- 
riety of cooking their food." The allusions, in 
Judge Sewall's diary, to the good things served 
on his table from time to time fairly make one's 
mouth water, — especially the desserts, which 
included " Minc'd Pye, Aplepy, tarts, ginger- 
bread, sugar'd almonds, glaz'd almonds, honey, 
curds and cream, sage cheese, Yokhegg in 
milk chockolett, figgs, oranges, apples, quinces, 
strawberries, cherries and raspberries." 

The traveler Bennet, who was in Boston in 
1740, has left us a statement as to the prices 
then current for the staple foods. 

" Their poultry of all sorts are as fine as can 
be desired, and they have plenty of fine fish of 
various kinds, all of which are very cheap. Take 
the butcher's meat all together, in every season 



250 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

of the year, I believe it is about twopence per 
pound sterling; the best beef and mutton, lamb 
and veal are often sold for sixpence per pound 
of New England money, which is some small 
matter more than one penny sterhng. 

" Poultry in their season are exceeding 
cheap. As good a turkey may be bought for 
about two shillings sterling as we can buy in 
London for six or seven, and as fine a goose for 
tenpence as would cost three shillings and six- 
pence or four shillings in London. . . . 

" Fish, too, is exceeding cheap. They sell a 
fine fresh cod that will weigh a dozen pounds 
or more, just taken out of the sea, for about 
twopence sterling. They have smelts, too, 
which they sell as cheap as sprats are in London. 
Salmon, too, they have in great plenty, and those 
they sell for about a shilling apiece, which will 
weigh fourteen or fifteen pounds. 

" They have venison very plenty. They will 
sell as fine a haunch for half a crown as would 
cost full thirty shillings in England. Bread is 
much cheaper than we have in England, but 
is not near so good. Butter is very fine and 
cheaper than ever I bought any in London ; the 
best is sold all summer for threepence a pound." 

This, as Weeden points out,^ was the com- 
fortable diet of the larger towns and of affluent 
people; salt pork and fish, baked beans, Indian 

1 " Economic and Social History of New England," p. 541. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 251 

pudding, *' boiled dinner ", and pumpkins in 
every style, constituted the diet of the com- 
monalty. The use of potatoes and tea came 
in together in New England. Previous to 1720, 
the vegetable mainstay of Ireland was almost 
unknown as an article of food, and even as late 
as 1750 " should any person have raised so 
large a quantity of potatoes as five bushels 
great would have been the inquiry among his 
neighbors, in what manner he could dispose of 
such an abundance." 

Tea made its way more easily, though 
previous to 1720 it was scarcely used at all. 
To be sure, traces may be found of copper tea- 
kettles in Plymouth early in the eighteenth 
century; but the kettles most generally used 
were cast-iron ones, made in considerable quanti- 
ties at Carver, Massachusetts, between 1760 
and 1765. Lewis, in his " History of Lynn ", 
records that " when ladies went to visiting 
parties, each one carried her tea cup, saucer 
and spoon. The tea cups were of the best 
china, very small, containing as much as a com- 
mon wine glass." A letter written in 1740 de- 
clares: " Tea is now become the darling of our 
women. Ahnost every little tradesman's wife 
must set sipping tea for an hour or more in the 
morning, and it may be again in the afternoon 
if they can get it. They talk of bestowing 
thirty or forty shillings upon a tea equipage 



252 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

as they call it. There is the silver spoons, silver 
tongs, and many other trinkets that I cannot 
name.'* Women's weaknesses always get into 
print, and tea-drinking, of course, came in for 
its share of lampooning. Witness the follow- 
ing, which seems to me well worth quoting as 
an example of the grotesque and highly in- 
volved humor of this period. I copy it from 
the Boston Evening Post of October 12, 17G7: 

Know all Men (and Women) by these Presents 
That I, Jane Teakettle, in the Township of Green 
Tea and County of Bohea and Province of Loaf 
Sugar, do owe and stand indebted unto Margery 
Tea-Pot, in the Township of Cream-Pot, in the 
County of Bread and Butter and province of Loaf 
Sugar aforesaid, in the Sum of Fifty Pounds Lawful 
Money, in Cups and Saucers, to be paid unto said 
Margery Tea-Pot, on or before the Tenth Day of 
Hot-Water next ensuing. As witness my Hand 
this Ninth Day of Milk-Bishet, and in the Fifty first 
year of Gossips Reign, 1738. 

Jane Teakettle X 
Sealed and delivered in 
Presence of us, 

Jane Slop-Bowl 

Bridget Sugar-Tongs, 

Dorothy Tea-Spoons 

Yet when giving up tea could do any good 
women gave it up gladly. " The following 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 253 

agreement ", we read in the Boston Evening Post 
of February 12, 1770, " has lately been come 
into by upwards of 300 Mistresses of Families 
in this Town; in which Number the Ladies of 
the highest rank and Influence, that could be 
waited upon in so short a Time, are included: 



Boston, January 31, 1770. 
At a time when our invaluable Rights and Priv- 
ileges are attacked in an unconstitutional and most 
alarming Manner, and as we find we are reproached 
for not being so ready as could be desired, to lend 
our Assistance, we think it our Duty perfectly to 
concur with the true Friends of Liberty in all Meas- 
ures they have taken to save this Abused Country 
from Ruin and Slavery. And particularly, we join 
with the very respectable Body of Merchants and 
other Inhabitants of this Town, who met in Faneuil 
Hall the 23d of this Instant, in their Resolutions, 
totally to abstain from the Use of Tea; And as the 
greatest Part of the Revenue arising by Virtue of 
the late Acts, is produced from the Duty paid upon 
Tea, which Revenue is wholly expended to support 
the American Board of Commissioners; WE, the 
Subscribers, do strictly engage, that we will totally 
abstain from the Use of that Article (Sickness ex- 
cepted) not only in our respective Families, but 
that we will absolutely refuse it, if it should be 
offered to us upon any Occasion whatsoever. This 
Agreement we cheerfully come into, as we believe 
the very distressed Situation of our Country requires 



254 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

it and we do hereby oblige ourselves religiously to 
observe it, till the late Revenue Acts are repealed. 

The coming together of Colonial women in 
this spirited manner was an even more revolu- 
tionary step than was taken by the men when 
they determined to oppose the King's forces 
with arms. Mrs. Hutchinson had hypnotized 
the women of her day into hatching a heresy 
and there had been special prayer-meetings 
for women in Whitefield's time. But for 
women to assemble with any other than a 
purely religious motive was an unheard-of 
thing. It is exceedingly significant, too, that 
the avowed object of their organization was to 
abandon one of the very few pleasures which 
were theirs. Tea-drinking meant far more to 
women then than it does now. Not lightly, 
by any means, did one abstainer write: 

" Farewell the teaboard with its gaudy equipage 
Of cups and saucers, creambucket, sugar tongs. 
The pretty tea-chest, also lately stored 
With Hyson, Congo and best double-fine. 
Full many a joyous moment have I sat by ye 
Hearing the girls tattle, the old maids talk 

scandal. 
And the spruce coxcomb laugh at — maybe — 

nothing;. ..." 



^&' 



But, though tea-drinking was abandoned, 
the social hours at which tea had been the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 255 

beverage continued. For was there not more 
and graver matter than ever to discuss? Sub- 
stitutes for tea had accordingly to be found, 
and, since none of these proved very satisfactory, 
— though Liberty Tea and Labrador Tea were 
loudly praised in the patriotic public press — 
coffee soon came to be consumed in great 
quantities. Thus we find Mrs. John Adams 
writing, on July 31, 1777, after the war had 
actually begun: 

" There is a great scarcity of Sugar and coffee, 
articles which the female part of the State is 
very loath to give up, especially whilst they 
consider the great scarcity occasioned by the 
merchants having secreted a large quantity. . . . 
It was rumored that an eminent stingy wealthy 
merchant (who is a bachelor) had a hogshead of 
coffee in his store which he refused to sell the 
committee under six shillings per pound. A 
number of females, some say a hundred, some 
say more, assembled with a cart and trunks, 
marched down to the warehouse and demanded 
the keys which he refused to deliver. Upon 
which one of them siezed him by his neck and 
tossed him into the cart. Upon his finding 
no quarter he delivered the keys when they 
tipped up the cart and discharged him; then 
opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee 
themselves, put [it] into the trunks and drove 
off. It is reported that he had personal chas- 



256 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

tisements among them, but this, I beheve was 
not true. A large concourse of men stood 
amazed, silent spectators of the whole transac- 
tion." 

Which would seem to prove that there were 
militant women in America more than a century 
before Mrs. Pankhurst saw the light of day in 
England ! 

In the sparsely settled districts, giving up 
tea involved little sacrifice, for the beverage 
was not much used there thus early. A very 
good idea of the living conditions of prosperous 
farmer-folk in Rhode Island, about the middle 
of the eighteenth century, is gained from the 
will of Robert Hazard, who, in providing for 
his " Dearly beloved wife ", mentions specif- 
ically what seemed to him enough to make her 
comfortable for the rest of her life : fifty pounds 
a year, " four cows to be kept summer and win- 
ter yearly and every year ", "a negro woman 
named Phebee", " one Rideing Mare, Such a 
one as She Shall Chuse Out of all my Jades, 
with a new Saddle and new Bridle." She was 
to have an allowance' of wood, beef, and pork 
yearly, the " beef to be Killed and Dressed, and 
brought to her into her house; " she was given 
" Six Dung-hill fowl ", and " six Geese with 
the privilege of raising what Increase She Can, 
but Shall put of [off] all of them to Six by the 
last of January yearly." Her furniture was to 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 257 

consist of one feather-bed, with six chairs, " two 
Iron pots one brass Kettle, two pair of Pott- 
hooks, two Trammels ", various pewter dishes 
and platters, some large, some " middling 
size ", pewter basins, and silver spoons. One 
piece of Camblitt was also given, " Saving so 
much of it as I give to my Daughter Mary to 
Make her a Cloak ", of linen the piece " called 
the fine piece ", also a piece of fine worsted 
cloth, worth forty pounds of wool yearly, and a 
" linnen wheel, and a Woollen Wheel." She 
was to have two rooms, " one a fire Room, the 
other a Bed room Such as She Shall Chuse in 
either of my two Houses ", and the " Improve- 
ment of a quarter of an Acre of Land where She 
Shall Chuse it to be Well fenced for her Use 
yearly." Andirons, fire-shovel, and warming- 
pan are also assured to the widow by this will. ^ 
Whether the " Rideing Mare " mentioned 
was a Narragansett pacer does not appear, but 
this would have been very natural, for these 
famous horses were raised in Narragansett and 
were very highly regarded. A large number of 
them were exported annually and still more sent 
to the West Indies and to Virginia. So great 
was their value that finally all the good mares 
were sold from out the country, thus repeating, 
as Caroline Hazard points out, the old fable 
of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. 

' " College Tom," by Caroline Hazard, p. 32. 



258 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

These pacers had great endurance and were 
capable of carrying heavy burdens in addition 
to one or two riders. They had speed, too. 
Races which they ran on what is now Narragan- 
sett Pier beach are enthusiastically described 
by many an old writer. 

Improvements in every-day living came very 
slowly in the country districts of New England, 
for the descendants of both Pilgrims and Puri- 
tans were content for many years to adhere to 
old-fashioned ways. Thus a traveler alight- 
ing at a New England farmhouse early in the 
nineteenth century would have encountered 
conditions nearly the same as those which ex- 
isted among people of the same class in old 
colony times. He would have found the great 
chimney with its open fireplace, and real chim- 
ney-corner, its splint-bottom chairs, spinning- 
wheel, and loom. For refreshment he would 
have been offered a mug of cider or a cana- 
kin of rum. At dinner would be seen a boiled 
leg of salt pork, or boiled ribs of salt beef, 
with mustard or horseradish, pickles, and hot 
vegetables. The table would be set with plain 
delft and with steel knives. Rye and Indian 
bread would be served on a wooden trencher. 
Pumpkin pie would very likely be the dessert. 
Tumblers there might have been (so called from 
the fact that no matter how you laid them down, 
they balanced themselves back into an upright 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 259 

position) ; and, by this time, there would proba- 
bly have been rude steel forks, thus making 
unnecessary the use, for toilet purposes, of the 
ewers and basins which played so important a 
part in the period when fingers were used to hold 
the food on the plate or convey it to the mouth. 
If our. traveler stayed the night and the time 
were winter, he would go up to a freezing attic, 
undress with only a braided woolen mat be- 
tween himself and the icy floor and stretch 
himself to rest on a feather bed placed on a 
sack of straw. The only " spring " in his couch 
would come as a result of the tautness with 
which the cords under the feathers had been 
stretched across the solid maple bedstead. 
Home-made blankets and a blue woolen cover- 
let, woven in the family loom, would consti- 
tute his coverings, and in the morning he would 
make his simple toilet down before the " sink " 
of the lean-to next the kitchen — after he had 
broken the ice in the bucket in order to get 
his meager supply of water. The tooth-brush 
was a luxury still unknown in primitive circles; 
regular ablutions of any kind and to any extent 
were, indeed, somewhat of an innovation. In- 
asmuch as we find the author of " Les Loix de 
la Galanterie " counseling in 1644: "Every 
day one should take pains to wash one's hands 
and one should also wash one's face almost as 
often ", this is not greatly to be wondered at. 



260 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

French gallantry having so recently begun to 
wash its face daily. New England yeomanry 
could not be expected to have progressed far, 
only a century and half later, in delicate care 
of the person. 

For the sake of promoting good feeling, how- 
ever, we will assume that our traveler comes 
to breakfast as clean as the manners of the time 
demanded. What would he find spread out 
there for his delectation.'^ Ham and eggs very 
likely, or salt fish prepared with cream, or bean 
porridge made from stock to which a ham bone 
had contributed liberally, or cold corned beef 
with hot potatoes. Usually there was hot 
bread (called " biscuits ", though more nearly 
of the muffin variety), and always there were 
sauces and pickles. 

The " boiled dinner " to which, on hotel 
menus, the descriptive words " New England " 
are still universally appended, was, as a matter 
of fact, the universal piece de resistance of the 
comfortable but uncultivated householder of 
olden times. It was prepared in a single great 
pot, the meat being put in first, and then — at 
intervals properly calculated to turn the whole 
thing out cooked, just as it should be, the minute 
the big clock in the corner should strike the 
hour of noon — were added potatoes, beets, 
squash, turnip, and cabbage, with very likely 
a bag of Indian pudding into the bargain. Such 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 261 

a dish was a meal of itself, neither dessert nor 
bread being regarded as necessary to its com- 
pleteness. 

The " pudding " of New England was often 
by way of being a *' sweet " in that it was made 
of molasses and butter as well as of Indian corn. 
And, strange to relate, it was served first! 
Hence the old saying: *' I came in season — in 
pudding time." At the house of John Adams 
there was served, as late as 1817, a dinner whose 
first course consisted of this species of Indian 
pudding, the second of veal, bacon, neck of 
mutton, and vegetables. On gala occasion 
there were much more elaborate dishes of 
course, as we have seen to be the case at the 
birth celebrations conducted by Judge Sewall. 
And, on Saturday, everybody ate fish for din- 
ner. This universal eating of fish was in order 
that the fisheries might not fail of support; 
Saturday rather than Friday was chosen, be- 
cause the Papists ate fish on Friday. Judge 
Sewall frequently speaks with unction of his Sat- 
urday dinner of fish; codfish balls on Sunday 
morning are a cherished New England survival. 

Pumpkins were very highly regarded as food. 



" We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins 
at noon. 

If it were not for pumpkins we should be un- 
done," 



262 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

sang a native poet. Madam Knight met this 
vegetable stand-by often on her journey, — of 
which we shall hear in a later chapter, — in the 
form of " pumpkin sauce " and " pumpkin 
bred." By Johnson's time New Englanders 
had *' Apple Pear and Quince Tarts " to sup- 
plement their former pumpkin pies. Johnny- 
cake, that other distinctively New England 
dish, was really journey-cake, so called from 
the fact that it was the mainstay of our fore- 
fathers when they went on long horseback 
trips. The Indian corn from which it was made 
was carried in a pouch and mixed, before eating, 
with snow in winter and water in summer. 
Johnny-cake was held to be the most sustain- 
ing form of food that could possibly be trans- 
ported in condensed form. 

Before leaving the pumpkin, however, note 
must be made of its sartorial function in the 
New England of early days, from which the 
epithet " pumpkin-head " was derived. In 
the lively " History of Connecticut," compiled 
by the Reverend Samuel Peters, this term is 
thus explained: "It originated from the ' Blue 
Laws ' which enjoined every male to have his 
hair cut round by a cap. When caps were not 
to be had they substituted the hard shell of a 
pumpkin, which being put on the head every 
Saturday, the hair is cut by the shell all round 
the head. Whatever religious virtue is sup- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 263 

posed to be derived from this custom, I know 
not; but there is much prudence in it: first, 
it prevents the hair from snarhng; secondly 
it saves the use of combs, bags and ribbons; 
thirdly the hair cannot incommode the eyes 
by falling over them ; and fourthly, such per- 
sons as have lost their ears for heresy, and other 
wickedness, cannot conceal their misfortune 
and disgrace." 

In an age when hair-cutting was thus crudely 
conducted and bathing only occasional, table 
manners naturally would be pretty primitive 
for the most part. We should be shocked to- 
day if, when we sat down to dinner a guest 
should pull a clasp knife out of his pocket, cut 
his meat into small pieces, and then feed him- 
self by conveying these pieces to his mouth 
with his fingers. Yet this was undoubtedly 
the way the early Puritans ate. Hence the 
proverb: "fingers were made before forks", 
and the grgat store of napkins which, with 
huge ewers for water, formed such an important 
part of every housekeeping outfit. 

As the years passed, certain codes developed 
to govern the use of these household necessities. 
In a little book compiled by Eleazar Moody, 
a Boston schoolmaster, are embalmed rules 
for the conduct of children at the meeting- 
house, at home, at the table, in company, in 
" discourse ", at the school, when abroad, and 



264 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

when among other children, which shed a flood 
of hght upon the manners of the period. At 
no time might a child approach its parents 
without a bow; and every child was expected 
to bear the reproach of parents, " without mur- 
muring or sullenness, even when such reproofs or 
corrections be causeless or undeserved." In 
the division given over to table manners, Mr. 
Moody directs: " Smell not of thy Meat, nor 
put it to thy Nose; turn it not the other side 
upward to view it upon thy Plate or Trencher; 
Throw not anything under the Table. . . . Foul 
not the napkin all over, but at one corner only. 
. . . Gnaw not Bones at the Table but clean 
them with thy knife (unless they be very small 
ones) and hold them not with a whole hand, 
but with two Fingers. When thou blowest 
thy Nose, let thy handkerchief be used," Mr. 
Moody counsels further and adds: " Spit not in 
the Room, but in the Corner, — and rub it with 
thy Foot." 

Heavy drinking was the common custom of 
old New England. Baron Riedesel wrote: 
" most of the males have a strong passion for 
strong drink, especially rum and other alcoholic 
beverages," and John Adams declared: " if the 
ancients drank wine as our people drink rum 
and cider it is no wonder we hear of so many 
possessed with devils." It is interesting to 
note that, according to one of Adams' descend- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 265 

ants, that worthy spoke as an expert on the 
consumption of strong drink. To the end of 
the great man's Hfe, we are told, " a large tank- 
ard of hard cider was his morning draught be- 
fore breakfast." 

Brewing delectable drinks was held to be 
a nice accomplishment, and the best way to 
prepare a punch, an egg-nogg, or a posset was 
regarded as a necessary part of every lady's ed- 
ucational outfit. The Weekly Post-Boy for 1743 
gives the following " Receipt for all Young 
Ladies that are going to be married, to make a 
Sack Posset: " 



" From fam'd Barbados on the western Main 
Fetch sugar half a pound; fetch Sack from 

Spain 
A Pint, and from the East Indian Coast 
Nutmeg, the Glory of our Northern Toast. 
O'er flaming Coals together let them heat, 
Till the all conquering Sack dissolve the Sweet. 
O'er such another Fire set Eggs twice ten, 
New born from foot of Cock and Rump of Hen; 
Stir them with steady Hand, and Conscience 

pricking, 
To see th' untimely Fate of Twenty Chicken. 
From shining Shelf take down your brazen 

Skillet, 
A quart of milk from gentle Cow will fill it. 
When boil'd and cool'd put Milk and Sack to 

. Egg. 
Unite them firmly like the tripple League; 



266 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Then covered close, together let them dwell 
Till Miss twice sings — You must not Kiss 

and tell. 
Each Lad and Lass snatch up their murdering 

Spoon, 
And fall on fiercely like a Starved Dragoon." 

To brew delectable drinks, to read, and to 
sew constituted all the desirable female ac- 
corhplishments. Writing was long held to be 
a work of supererogation in a woman. Scarcely 
one woman in a dozen could write in 1700, and 
of those whose names appear in the recorded 
deeds of the early part of the eighteenth century, 
less than forty per cent, sign except by use of a 
mark. 

In humbler households, the goodwife was, in 
her own person, a dozen different workers. 
For one thing, she was a nurse, raising in her 
little botanical garden lovage, sage, saffron, 
and the other herbs so likely to be needed 
during sickness. She could spin, too, and so 
set an example when it was decided to punish 
England by wearing only garments of home- 
spun manufacture. Providence, Rhode Island, 
was the scene of an organization formed for 
this purpose in 1766. Then seventeen young 
ladies, called the Daughters of Liberty, met at 
the house of Deacon Ephraim Bowen and spun 
all day for the public benefit. The next day 
their numbers had so increased that the court- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 267 

house was none too large for them. At about 
the same time, another band of Daughters 
gathered at Newport, this group including all 
the beautiful and brilliant girls for which that 
town was then so celebrated. Because these 
girls were pretty — and because their cause was 
just — the president and the first graduating 
class of Brown University, then called Rhode 
Island College, wore clothing at the Commence- 
ment of 1769 made wholly of American home- 
spun. 

Far and wide throughout New England, this 
movement on the part of the women spread, 
and in Newbury, Beverly, Ipswich, and Row- 
ley spinning matches were held, one of which 
is thus described in the Boston News-Letter: 

" Rowley. A number of thirty-three respecta- 
ble ladies of the town met at sunrise [the month 
of July] with their wheels to spend the day at 
the house of the Rev'd Jedediah Jewell in the 
laudable design of a spinning match. At an 
hour before sunset, the ladies then appearing 
neatly dressed, principally in homespun, a polite 
and generous repast of American production 
was set for their entertainment, after which, 
there being present many spectators of both 
sexes, Mr. Jewell delivered a profitable dis- 
course from Romans XII. 2: Not slothful 
in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 

We need not follow the many sermons 



268 



SOCIAL LIFE IN 



preached on similar texts to these patriotic 
women, but we must not deny ourselves the 
pleasure of some of the " poetry " which re- 
flects the revolutionary spirit of the times. In 
the Massachusetts Gazette of November 9, 1767, 
may be found these lines : 

" Young ladies in town and those that live 
round 
Let a friend at this season advise you. 
Since money's so scarce and the times growing- 
worse, 
Strange things may soon hap and surprise 
you. 
First, then, throw aside your high top knots of 
pride, 
Wear none but your own country linen. 
Of economy boast. Let your pride be the 
most 
To show cloaths of your own make and 
spinning." 



These " cloaths of their own make and 
spinning " formed a very important part of a 
young housekeeper's outfit. For the house- 
linen of early days was largely home-made, 
" linen " always signifying exactly that, while 
*' holland " meant whatever was imported. 
Home-made table-cloths were of diaper pat- 
terns, — two widths, a yard wide, sewed to- 
gether. The best ones would probably be of 
holland. By an unwritten law the girl supplied 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 269 

the bed and bedding/ even to the curtains and 
valances; but the duty of procuring the bed- 
steads devolved upon the man. 

Having spun the flax and wool and ac- 
cumulated in her linen chest enough house- 
linen to last the family a long time, a young 
housekeeper could turn her attention to the 
matter of making pretty clothes for herself. In 
those days the art of embroidery played an im- 
portant role; " neck-handkerchiefs and ruf- 
fles were wrought with marvellous stitches, 
and a long band of fine white linen was worked 
with many soft-colored crewels, in a trailing 
pattern of vines, flowers, and butterflies that 
would make the petticoat it was to border the 
envy of all beholders." 

For the styles the house-mother of moderate 
means examined the wardrobe of a doll which 
had been decked out in the latest mode. From 
the Neio England Weekly Journal of July 2, 
1733, I copy the following: 

" To be seen at MRS. HANNAH TEATTS, 
Mantua-maker at the head of Summer street, 
Boston, a Baby drest after the newest fashion 
of Mantuas and Night-Gowns and everything 
belonging to a Dress, lately arrived in Capt. 
White from London, any ladies that desire to 

1 " No maiden properly brought up would think herself prepared 
to marry until she had, at least, ten pairs of linen sheets. . . . She 
had a supply of blankets, also, white and blue and yellow plaids." 
" Salt Box House." 



270 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

see it, may either come or send & she will be 
ready to wait on 'em, if they come to the House 
it is Five Shillings, and if she waits on them it is 
Seven Shillings." 

Would that some diarist with a lively pen 
had left us a description of the women she met 
examining the garments displayed by Madam 
Teatts! Were the styles in hats introduced in 
the same way, we wonder? If so, there must 
once have been a day when a doll, either in the 
Teatts establishment or elsewhere, first bowed 
its head under the burden of a calash, that very 
distinctive head-covering whose virtues were 
thus ambiguously celebrated in a Norwich 
newspaper of 1780: 

*' Hail, great Calash! o'erwhelming veil. 
By all-indulgent Heaven 
To sallow nymphs and maidens stale. 
In sportive kindness given." 

More sunshade than bonnet, this extraordi- 
nary production ^ is said to have been invented 
by the Duchess of Bedford in 1765. It was 
usually made of thin green silk, shirred on 
strong lengths of rattan or whalebone, which 
had been placed two or three inches apart. 
Sometimes it was finished with a narrow cape. 
It received its name from the old-fashioned 

^ A calash adorns the head of the figure in the frontispiece of this 
book. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 271 

chaise or calash, which it greatly resembled 
when it had been drawn out over the face by 
pulling narrow ribbon bridles fastened to its 
edge on top. Calashes were frequently a foot 
and a half in diameter, having been originally 
designed to form an adequate covering for the 
high-dressed and be-wigged heads of the period. 
The " lust for wigs," it must be understood, 
had pretty nearly everybody in its grip by this 
time. The Apostle John Eliot had denounced 
wigs eloquently. Reverend Mr. Noyes had 
thundered about them in the pulpit, and the 
legislature of Massachusetts had made a law 
against them. Yet Governor Barefoot of New 
Hampshire wore a periwig as early as 1670, 
John Wilson and Cotton Mather adopted this 
fashion in their turn, and in 1676 Wait Win- 
throp wrote to his brother in New London: " I 
send herewith the best wig that is to be had in 
ye countrye. Mr. Sergeant brought it from 
England for his own use and says it cost him 
two guineas and six shillings, and that he never 
wore it six howers. He tells me will have three 
pounds for it." By 1716 the fashion of wearing 
wigs had become well-nigh universal among 
men, and we read in the Boston News-Letter of 
August 14, 1729: "Taken from the shop of 
Powers Mariott Barber, a light Flaxen Naturall 
Wigg Parted from the forehead to the Crown. 
The Narrow Ribband is of a Red Pink Colour. 



272 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

The Caul is in Rows of Red Green & White." 
The newspapers of this period are full, indeed, 
of advertisements concerning barbers who will 
dress wigs, wigs which are for sale, and wigs 
which have been lost or stolen. 

Hawthorne gives this partial list of wigs : The 
tie, the brigadier, the spencer, the albemarle, 
the major, the ramillies, the grave full-bottom, 
and the giddy feather-top. To which might be 
added many other varieties of the wig family. 
The sequence of fashions in this particular is 
very interesting to trace as reflected in the por- 
traits of Smibert, Blackburn, Copley and Gil- 
bert Stuart. 

Even the children wore on their heads these 
expensive and uncomfortable deformities. And 
young women, after having so maltreated their 
hair that they had very little of it left, were 
very glad to take refuge in wigs. Eliza South- 
gate of Scarborough, Maine, writes her mother 
from Boston, where she was visiting in 
1800, that she must have " a .5 dollar bill by 
the post immediately " in order to buy a wig 
in time to wear to the next Assembly.^ " I must 
either cut my hair or have one," she insists, 
" for I cannot dress it at all stylish. Mrs. 
Coffin bought Eleanor's and will get me one 
just like it; how much time it will save — in one 
year we could save it in pins and paper, besides 

^ " Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne: " Charles Scribner's Sons. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 273 

the trouble. At the Assembly I was quite 
ashamed of my head for nobody has long 
hair." 

The useful puppet was probably employed 
to show fashions in wigs, as well as in " mantuas" 
and " night-gowns." 

To conclude that all dressmaking was done 
in the house, from patterns and styles thus 
acquired, would, however, be a mistake. Well- 
to-do famihes had long patronized tailors, and 
that quite extensively, as the following bill of 
William Sweatland for work done for the family 
of Jonathan Corwin of Salem clearly shows. 
Corwin was the judge who tried the Salem 
witches; his name is inextricably associated 
with the sad end of Rebecca Nourse of Dan- 
vers, whom he sent to the gallows, July 19, 
1692. His tailor's bill in manuscript may be 
seen in the library of the American Antiquarian 
Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. 

£. s. d. 
Sept. 29, 1679. To plaiting a gown for 

Mrs 3 6 

To makeing a Childs Coat 6 

To makeing a Scarlett petticoat with 

Silver Lace for Mrs 9 

For new makeing a plush somar for 

Mrs 6 

Dec. 22, 1679. For making a Somar for 

your Maide 10 



274 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

£. s. d. 
Mar. 10, 1679. To a yard of Callico 2 

To 1 Douzen and 3^ of silver buttons 1 6 

To thread 4 

To makeing a broad cloth hatte 14 

To making a haire Camcottcoat 9 

To making new halfsleeves to a silk 

Coascett 1 

March 25 To altering and fitting a 

paire of Stays for Mrs 1 

Ap. 3, 1680, to makeing a Gowne for 

ye Maide 10 

May 20. For removing buttons of ye 

coat 6 

Juli 25, 1680. For makeing two Hatts 

and Jacketts for your two sonnes 19 

Aug. 14. To makeing a white Scarson- 

nett plaited Gowne for Mrs 8 

To makeing a black broad cloth Coat 

for yourselfe 9 

Sep. 3, 1680, To makeing a Silke Laced 

Gowne for Mrs 1 8 

Oct. 7, 1680, to makeing a Young 

Childs Coate 4 

To faceing your Owne Coate Sleeves 1 

To new plaiting a petty Coat for Mrs. 1 6 

Nov. 7. To makeing a black broad 

Cloth Gowne for Mrs 18 

Feb. 26, 1680-1 To searing a Petty 

Coat for Mrs 6 

Sum is, £ 8 4s lOd 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 275 

The Corwin family, being of the magistracy, 
might wear elegant garments without let or 
hindrance. But if they had not been " gentle- 
folk," such clothes would have been forbidden 
them by law. For there was sumptuary legis- 
lation in these early days. In October, 1651, 
the court of Massachusetts declared that " in- 
tolerable excesse and bravery hath crept in 
upon us and especially among people of mean 
condition " and registered their " utter detes- 
tation and dislike that men of mean conditions 
and callings should take upon them the garb 
of gentlemen by wearing gold or silver lace, 
or buttons or points at their knees, to walk in 
great boots, or' women of the same ranke, to 
wear silk or tiffany hoods or scarfs, which, 
though allowable to persons of greater estates, 
or more liberal education, they judge it intol- 
erable in persons of such like condition." 
Whereupon it was ordered that with the excep- 
tion of " magistrates, or any publick officer of 
this jurisdiction, their wives and children, mili- 
tary oflficers or soldiers, or any other whose 
education or employment have been above the 
ordinary degree, or whose estates have been 
considerable, though now decayed, or who were 
not worth two hundred pounds, no person should 
transgress this law under penalty of ten shil- 
lings." 

This law was inspired by belief in the value 



276 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

of class distinctions. From the beginning, in 
New England, there were three distinct classes: 
the gentry, the yeomanry, and the tradesfolk; 
and the intention was to preserve these dis- 
tinctions here just as they have been preserved 
in the motherland. Ship-building and the com- 
merce that followed in its wake, manufacturing, 
and the New England keenness in bargains and 
business soon availed, however, to break down 
classes; and presently the Revolution raised 
the lowly and leveled those of high estate in a 
highly disconcerting fashion. 

Then it was that servants began to be help 
— '* hired help " as the phrase goes in New 
England to this day. 

Most of the service during the early colonial 
period was performed by " redemptioners," 
and contemporary literature is full of interest- 
ing allusions to the terms of their contracts. 
Lechford tells us in his " Note-books " of 
Elizabeth Evans, who came from Ireland to 
serve John Wheelwright, minister, for three 
years, her wages being three pounds per annum 
and passage paid, and of Margery Bateman, 
who, after five years of service in Charlestown, 
was to receive a she-goat to help her in starting 
in life. In the Boston News-Letter may be 
found an advertisement in which Robert Galton 
offers " a few boy servants indentured for seven 
years and girls for four years ", while " Mrs. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 277 

Johnson's Captivity " tells of apprenticed serv- 
ants bound for a term of years who, in 1730, 
were sold from ships in Boston. As late as 
August 1, 1817, indeed, Samuel Breck, a Bos- 
tonian then living in Philadelphia, wrote with 
no sense of shame: 

'* I went on board the ship John from Amster- 
dam . . . and I purchased one German Swiss 
for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for my- 
self. ... I gave for the woman $76, which is 
her passage-money, with a promise of $20 at 
the end of three years if she serves me faith- 
fully; clothing and maintenance of course. 
The boy had paid twenty-six guilders toward 
his passage-money which I agreed to give him 
at the end of three years; in addition to which 
I paid fifty-three dollars and sixty cents for his 
passage, and for two years he is to have six 
weeks schooling each year." 

Breck had grown up in a community in which 
indentured servants were an established in- 
stitution. 

From the Boston Evening Post of September 
28, 1767, I copy the following: 

TEN DOLLARS REWARD 

Ran away from Capt. Aaron Willard, of Lan- 
caster, in the County of Worcester, on the 28th 
of June last, an indentured servant named Patrick 



278 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Ryon, a Native of Ireland; he is a likely well- 
limbed Lad, about 20 years of Age, 5 Feet 9 inches 
high or thereabouts, of a ruddy fair Complexion, 
and wears his own Hair; Had on when he went 
away a brownish cloth colour'd Coat, trimmed with 
metal buttons, a Jacket of the same Colour, without 
Sleeves, trimmed with yellow metal Buttons, a pair 
of mixt blue and white Stockings, and also carried 
with him a pair or two of Trowsers made of Tow 
Cloth not whitened. 

Whoever will take up the aforesaid Servant and 
bring him to his Master, or secure him in any of 
his Majesty's Gaols, and give information thereof 
to his said Master, shall be entitled to Ten Dollars 
Reward, and all necessary Charges paid by Aaron 
Willard, jun. 

All masters of Vessels and others are hereby cau- 
tioned against concealing or carrying off said Servant, 
as they would avoid the Penalty of the Law. 

These advertisements make clear — and there 
is plenty of other evidence besides — that the 
time of the indentured servant belonged abso- 
lutely to the master, and that he had the right 
to do with it what he would. Slaves, too, as well 
as bond servants, were held in old New England. 
I have found negroes advertised in the same 
newspaper list with tea, velvet, and candles; 
and Randolph could report two hundred slaves 
here in 1676.^ The Quakers protested vigor- 

^ " Hutchinson Papers," II., 219. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 279 

ously against the slave-trade in Rhode Island, 
yet Newport continued to be the receiving and 
disbursing center for most of the negroes brought 
from Guinea and Madagascar. 

Not only were negroes of both sexes bought 
and sold/ but Indians also appear to have been 
leased out as household drudges. In the New 
England Weekly Journal of March 17, 1729, 
I find advertised: 

" KS^An Indian Woman's Time for about 2 
Years, who can do all sorts of Household Work." 

It was quite a common thing, in the early 
days, to whip servants who were particularly 
annoying, and many instances can be found of 
a master who had to be fined for over-indul- 
gence in this practice. In Boston and other 
towns, accordingly, commissioners were elected 
who had power to sentence, for whippings ex- 
ceeding ten stripes, servants who behaved 
*' disobediently and disorderly toward their mas- 
ters and governours." Hartford, Connecticut, 
had a similar law, and Mrs. Earle quotes the 
case of Susan Coles of that town, who, " for her 
rebellious caredge towards her mistris, is to be 
sent to the house of correction, and be kept to 
hard labour and coarse dyet, to be brought forth 

' See the account of Phillis Wheatley, p. 314 et seq., " Old Boston 
Days and Ways." 



280 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

the next Lecture Day to be publiquely corrected 
and so to be corrected weekly until Order be 
given to the Contrary." 

Yet treating maids " as members of the 
family " did not seem to produce the desired 
result. John Wynter, the head agent of the 
settlement at Richmonds Island, Maine, gives 
a very bad character, in 1639, to a maid there 
employed, and this notwithstanding the fact 
that " for a yeare & quarter or more she lay 
with my daughter oppon a good feather bed." 

In the old days, as to-day, the servant prob- 
lem bore most heavily on those who lived " out 
of town." Governor Winthrop's daughter, 
Mary, who in 1633 was married to the eldest 
son of Deputy-Governor Dudley and went to 
live in Ipswich, Massachusetts, had very great 
difficulty in conducting the affairs of her house- 
hold and is repeatedly found beseeching her 
mother to send her " a good lusty servant." On 
April 28, 1636, she writes agitatedly: "I am 
forced to crave your help as speedily as maye 
be, my mayd being to goe away upon May 
day and I am like to be altogether destitute. I 
cannot get her to stay a month longer. . . . 
My husband is willing to stand what you shall 
think meet to give. ... I desire that the mayd 
that you provide me may be one that hath been 
used to all kinds of work and must refuse none. 
If she have skill in the dayrie I shall be the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 281 

gladder." When such a " mayd " was secured 
and sent down, however, she proved to be not 
at all the treasure desired though " at her first 
coming she carried herself dutifully as be- 
came a servant. But since through mine and 
my husband's forbearance towards her for small 
faults she hath got such a head, and is growen 
soe insolent that her carriage towards us, es- 
pecially myselfe, is unsufferable. If I bid her 
doe a thing shee will bid me doe it myselfe, and 
she says how she can give content as well as 
any servant but she will not, and sayes if I 
love not quietnes I was never so fitted in my 
life for shee would make me have enough of it. 
... If I tell my husband of her behavior to 
me, upon examination shee will denie all that 
she hath done or spoken; so that we know not 
how to proceed against her." 

Yet they did proceed in precisely the same 
way that hundreds of harassed housewives 
have since proceeded: they "hired another 
maide " and went through the whole perform- 
ance da capo. 

Servants being a more or less unknown quan- 
tity, then as now, the question arises: How did 
our great-great-grandmothers manage to pre- 
serve the beautiful china which has come down 
to us through so many generations? The 
answer is that the Puritan housekeeper kept 
her china by not using it. 



282 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

In cabinets and cases with glass doors, on 
shelves, and in racks made especially for it, 
on mantelpieces, tops of cupboards, cases, 
presses, and chests of drawers were ranged these 
precious relics. They did not, by any means, 
find their way daily to the table, as would be 
the case in our time. With the dishes were to 
be found as ornaments china animals of various 
kinds, hideous things to the modern eye but 
very interesting because they were exceeding 
dear to the children of an earlier day. 

To the cities, when our ships began to sail 
back and forth from China, there came a great 
deal of choice pottery from the Orient.^ In 
some of the more prosperous families this kind 
of ware was in daily use about the time of the 
Revolution. But everybody did not care for 
Eastern art, as may be seen from the following 
description of a teapot found in a long fable 
dated 1754: 

*' A tawdry Tea Pot a la mode 
Where Art her utmost skill bestow'd, 
Was much esteem'd for being old, 
And on its sides with Red and Gold 
Strange beasts were drawn in taste Chinese, 

1 In October, 1767, Jolley Allen, who had just opened a shop 
" about Midway between the Governour's and the Town-House 
[Boston], and almost opposite the Heart and Crown in Cornhill," 
advertised, among other things, " India China; Neat blue and white 
China long Dishes various sizes, cnamel'd Plates, blue and white 
ditto, enamel'd Punch Bowls, blue and white ditto of various sizes, 
blue and white China Cups & Saucers &c. &c." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 283 

And frightful Fish and hump-backed Trees. 

High in an elegant beaufet 

This pompous utensil was set. 

And near it on a Marble Slab 

Forsaken by some careless Drab 

A veteran Scrubbing Brush was plac'd 

And the rich furniture disgrac'd." 

Which tells us that Oriental teapots were no 
less ugly — and New England housemaids no 
less careless — in 1754 than in 1914. 

A man who made too free with his own china, 
or in any other way lived more elegantly than 
his neighbors thought he should, was by no 
means left in ignorance of the disapproval in 
which he was held. Thus Hooper, of the Har- 
vard Class of 1763, was universally called 
" King " Hooper because of the magnificent 
style in which his household was conducted. 
The beautiful mansion which he built at Dan- 
vers, Massachusetts, is still standing in perfect 
condition and Is one of the finest examples of 
eighteenth-century architecture in New Eng- 
land. Its first owner became a refugee in 1775 
and died Insolvent In 1790. 

Dignity rather than luxury was the ap- 
proved characteristic of the comfortable village 
home; and this was largely attained by the 
architecture of the doorway and the spacious 
lines of the entrance-hall. Often these doorways 
were quite intricate in their design, but they 



284 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

were almost always restrained in decoration and 
created the effect of fine simplicity. Piazzas 
were rare, but many houses had a spacious" 
porch before the entrance, which on special 
occasions was used for sitting out. The finer 
residences had knockers on the front door, and 
always, instead of door-knobs, latches were 
used, iron latches in some cases, wooden ones 
in other. Where the latch had no thumb -piece, 
and the more primitive latches were always 
without this contrivance, a string was attached, 
and a hole bored for the purpose of letting the 
string through just above the latch. Thus, 
when the latch-string hung out, the door could 
be opened from the outside; locking up was 
simply a matter of pulling in the string. 

The prevailing color of the houses was yellow 
or red, and until the nineteenth century there 
were no blinds. Wooden shutters inside were 
common, a survival of the days when, because 
of the fear of the Indians, heavy wooden doors 
were in every home ready to be swung across 
the windows and used as a barricade. In the 
more elegant houses, the walls would be hung 
with landscape wall-paper; but in humbler 
dwellings, the walls, like the floors, were bare. 
The latter were frequently painted yellow and 
in seaboard towns sprinkled with white sea-sand 
swept into fanciful patterns. 

Occasionally a housewife would rebel at the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 285 

blank ugliness of her floors. One such deter- 
mined to make herself a carpet.^ She secured a 
large square of sail-cloth and proceeded to paint 
on it, with such colors as she could procure, 
a pattern of flowers of every kind she had ever 
seen and of many — such as blue roses and 
green lihes — she had never seen. When fin- 
ished, she covered her product with a thick coat 
of varnish, and might have enjoyed the result 
a good deal, but that an old deacon, who 
chanced to call in, asked her solemnly: " Surely, 
Sister Brown, you do not expect to have all this 
and heaven, besides? " 

Since many very charming books have been 
written on the house-furnishings of colonial 
and later periods, I shall content myself with 
just a reference here to the high-boys and low- 
boys, the carved chests and high-posted beds, 
the fascinating quilts and curious hangings of 
these long-ago days in New England. But I 
will not slight the heart of the house, the kitchen 
with its wide fireplace, its chimney-corner (liter- 
ally that in the old days), its crane, jack, spit, 
and pothook. In such a kitchen a tin candle- 
stick with a long back was usually suspended 
from the wall over the mantel, while beams and 
ceilings were hung with ears of corn, crooknecks, 
and flitches of meat. 

' The oarpets of the seventeenth century were usually coverings 
for tables, not for floors at all, it should, however, be remembered. 
See Governor Eaton's inventory above. 



286 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Comestible comfort was typical of the New 
England hearthstone. Even where only the 
utensils of an old-time household survive, — as 
in the ample kitchen of the Dorothy Q. house 
in Quincy, Massachusetts, — no great stretch 
of imagination is required to picture the bustling 
preparations which must here have gone on 
when Samuel Sewall arrived to spend the night, 
or Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage 
sent down to be cooked for supper the eels that 
they had just caught in the brook near by. Here, 
as in the kitchens of most old New England 
houses, may be seen a huge chest of sturdy con- 
struction. For rich and poor alike, when they 
set up housekeeping, w^ere equipped with a 
chest and a feather bed. Here, too, is the tin 
kitchen for roasting meat and baking bread, 
a churn, a piggin for dishing up water, a swift 
fastened to the table to wind wool, with its 
reel, which clicked intelligently at the end of 
every forty threads, thus letting its manipulator 
know that after seven such clicks she had 
wound her skein. But there is no clock in this 
kitchen, which dates from 1635. New Eng- 
land's first clock was the property of John Dav- 
enport, in the New Haven colony, who died in 
1670. And as late as 1780 a clock cost no less 
than twenty-one pounds " hard money." But 
hour-glasses there were; and many a maiden 
timed cooking which had to be counted in 




COMPASS AND SUN - DIAL OWNED BY ROGER WILLIAMS AND PRESU- 
MABLY USED BY HIM IN HIS JOURNEY INTO EXILE IN 1635. 
Now in the custody of the Rhode Island Historical Society. 




A FINE EXAMPLE OF A HIGHBOY. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 287 

minutes rather than hours by singing hymns; 
one verse of a hymn eight Hues long represented 
just the time required to cook an egg properly. 
In the dearth of clocks, sun-dials occupied 
an important place in household economy and 
in colonial gardens. While the Reverend Arthur 
Browne was in charge of King's Church at 
Providence, a certain George Taylor, " a Church 
schoolmaster ", was given permission by the 
Colonial Assembly " to keep school in one of 
the chambers of the county house at Provi- 
dence " under certain specified conditions, one 
of which was that he " erect a handsome sun- 
dial in the front of said house, both for ornament 
and use." Possibly the town fathers had in 
mind, as they made this provision, that a sun- 
dial had been the means of guiding to their 
province, just a century before, Roger Will 
iams, the great founder of Rhode Island. 



288 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER VII 



KEEPING A DIARY 



THE men and women of early New Eng- 
land did not necessarily wait until they 
had married and settled down before 
beginning to keep a diary; some of the most 
interesting journals I have seen were from the 
pens of children and college students. But it 
was quite a common thing, none the less, for a 
diary to begin as does Deacon John Tudor's: 
" 1732 June 15. I was married to Ms Jane 
Varney. We was Married by Dr. Timy Cutler 
in Christ Church in Boston at 9 o'clock fore- 
noon." Following which immediately comes 
the entry: *' July 17. Went to House keeping." 
Thus we appear to be justified in placing the 
diary chapter of this book just after that de- 
voted to the large and varied business of launch- 
ing a home. 

John Quincy Adams began to keep a diary 
at the age of eleven and continued the practice, 
almost without interruption, for sixty-eight 
years. The results of his industry, as edited 
and amplified by Charles Francis Adams, make 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 289 

five large volumes. Doctor Manasseh Cutler 
of Ipswich, from whose entertaining journal 
we shall have occasion to quote, kept a careful 
record of his personal affairs from 1765 until 
1823. And Judge Sewall, as we know, covered 
in his very important diary practically every 
event of consequence during his full and varied 
life. 

The Judge of the Witches generally used for 
his journal interleaved almanacs, though he 
afterwards expanded some of his first entries 
for the pages of his diary proper. A friend who 
has made a careful study of manuscript diaries, 
and has examined hundreds, probably, of these 
fascinating relics of a vanished day, tells me 
that their kinds are legion.. " All diaries prob- 
ably had covers once," she says, " and I believe 
that these covers were usually of leather, al- 
though sometimes, of course, paper was made 
to serve; I have seen some for which pretty 
bits of wall-paper had been thus utilized. The 
' pocketbook ' with a brass clasp or a leather 
strap was not uncommon, and some of the 
leather-bound books are very old. Many dia- 
ries, however, were kept in interleaved alma- 
nacs, to which extra leaves, — either of letter- 
paper, — or perhaps the unused sheets of old 
letters with writing on one side — were added. 
These sheets were of all sizes, sometimes square, 
and sometimes long and narrow; but the paper 



290 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

was invariably good, and ink was always used, 
— even in soldiers' journals." 

One of the earliest diaries extant is that of 
Reverend William Adams, who was born May 
27, 1650, graduated at Harvard in 1671, and 
from 1673 until his death in 1685 presided over 
the Congregational Church in Dedham, Massa- 
chusetts. This journal was written in a small 
blank volume, which once had clasps, and is 
bound in black leather. It contains perhaps 
four hundred pages, of which fifteen are covered 
by Mr. Adams' entries, inscribed in a small, 
compressed hand, with every letter very care- 
fully formed. That young Adams often trav- 
eled from Cambridge to Ipswich " afoot," that 
he once got " lost in Charlestowne woods and lay 
in ye woods all night so bewildered I took N. for 
S. and contra," and that Samuel Sewall some- 
times accompanied him on his student tramps 
are interesting early entries. 

The twenty-third birthday of this earnest 
young graduate found him " removed from 
Cambridge to Dedham to ye solemn under- 
taking of ye ministry there on triall for future 
settlement. As we were coming to Dedham 
my horse stumbled and I had a fall tho I re- 
ceived no hurt; which caused me to reflect upon 
myselfe whether I had not been something 
lifted up, yt there were so many come to 
attend on me, and to adore ye wisdom and 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 291 

grace of God in yt he can and doth effectually 
bring down high thoughts without bringing 
any reall hurt to his servants. 

" July 29. The Church and inhabitants of 
Dedham agreed to give me ye summe of 100£ 
money or money's worth towards ye purchase 
of a habitation for my settlement, to be paid at 
3 moths warning. 

" Dec. 3. I was ordained. . . . 

" Jan. 30, 1674. I was admitted to the free- 
dom of ye Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

" Oct. 21. I was married to Mary Manning 
of Cambridge. 

" Nov. 12, 1675. My daughter Mary was 
born. . . . 

"April 13, 1676. My daughter Mary 
died. . . . 

"March 26, 1677. My son Eliphalet . . . 
was born. 

"Jan. 17, 1678. My son William was 
born. . . . 

" June 24, 1679. My dear and loving wife 
departed this life after we had been married 
and lived together 4 years and 8 months, 
whereby I am bereaved of a sweet and pleasant 
companion and left in a very lonely and solitary 
condition. 

" Anno 1680 — March 27. I was married 
to Alice Bradford, daughter to Major William 
Bradford of Plimouth." 



292 SOCIAL LIFE IIST 

This is almost the last entry in the diary. 
In another hand, we soon find the record of the 
young pastor's premature death. 

Another Massachusetts parson. Reverend 
Ebenezer Parkman, kept a journal by means 
of which we are enabled to have an intimate 
share in small-town New England life during 
the early eighteenth century. This diary, 
edited by Harriette M. Forbes and given to the 
public by the Westborough Historical Society, 
reflects as does no other volume which I have 
been privileged to see the joys and sorrows, the 
petty cares and economies of a conscientious 
country parson. As we read, we find ourselves 
worried, just as the clerical writer was, over the 
failure of the parish to pay his salary promptly, 
his ominously scanty supply of firewood, and 
the imminent recurrence of the Harvard Col- 
lege bills for the education of " son Elias." 

Ebenezer Parkman was born in Boston, Sep- 
tember 5, 1703, graduated from Harvard Col- 
lege in 1721, promptly married Mary Champney 
of Cambridge, and by her had five children. 
Then, after nearly twelve years of married life, 
Mrs. Parkman died, and the bereaved husband 
and father, though he mourned her sincerely, 
began to look about for some other good woman 
who would be the head of his home and the 
mother of his children. Thus we find him 
writing in his journal: 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 293 

*' February 17, 1737 N. B. Ye Discovery of 
my Inclinations to Capt. Sharp and to Mm. 
by Yr urgent persuasion I tarryd and lodg'd 
there — N. B. Mrs. Susanna Sharp. " Mistress 
Susanna was a maid of twenty-one summers at 
this time and her father was a prominent citi- 
zen and large landowner of Brookline, Massa- 
chusetts. We do not wonder that a West- 
borough minister, who was more than ten years 
her senior and had five small children to be 
brought up, found himself unable to persuade 
her into matrimony. Mr. Parkman seems to 
have done his best but records at last that 
his " arguments " were " fruitless with Mrs. 
Susan." 

The next lady to whom he turned his atten- 
tion as a suitor was Miss Hannah Breck, daugh- 
ter of Reverend Robert Breck, minister at 
Springfield, Massachusetts, and the sister of 
Mrs. Benjamin Gott of Marlborough. It was 
in the pleasant home of the good doctor whom 
we met in a previous chapter that Mr. Park- 
man conducted his wooing. Hannah was also 
twenty-one and by no means lacked spirit. 
Apparently she refused the good parson at first 
and then, at his request, burned the letters and 
poems in which he had been pouring out his 
heart to her. Yet, not long afterwards, we find 
him writing: 

"March 25, 1737: Rode to Marlborough. 



294 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Spent ye afternoon at Dr. Gott's. N. B. Mrs. 
H — h B — k at ye Dr.'s still. Our conversation 
of a piece with what it used to be. I mark her 
admirable Conduct, her Prudence and wisdom, 
her good manners & her distinguishing Respect- 
fulness to me wc accompany her Denyals. 
After it grew late in ye Evening I rode home to 
West., through the Dark and the Dirt, but 
cheerfully and comfortably (comparatively).'* 
• A week later we find him again at Doctor 
Gott's. " Mrs. H — h was thought to be gone to 
Mr. Week's or Capt. Williams, with design to 
lodge there, but she returned to ye Doctors. And 
she gave me her Company till it was very late. 
Her Conversation was very friendly, and with 
divers expressions of Singular and Peculiar 
Regard. ... I lodged there, and with great 
satisfaction & Composure." And although Mis- 
tress Hannah had categorically said, on this 
occasion, that she could not " yield to being a 
step mother ", she appears to have yielded in 
the next breath; for she married her minister 
on September 11, 1737, and began her career 
as first lady of Westborough by entertaining 
Paul Dudley at dinner, a fortnight later, as he 
rode back from keeping court at Springfield, 
her former home. 

The next entry we are privileged to see in the 
journal shows that more than forty years have 
slipped away and Elias, the youngest of the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 295 

eleven children born to Hannah and Ebenezer 
Parkman, is a student at Harvard. The date 
is November 4, 1778. We read: " Elias, on 
Mr. Tainter's Horse returned to Cambridge. 
I gave him 14 dollars, my newest Shooes, a 
variety of cloatheing, half a large Cheese &c &c 
May God incline his Heart to Religion & Learn- 
mg! 

Putting Elias through college was a hard 
strain on the parson, now well along in years, 
and, had not the older brothers helped, might 
have been impossible. For the depression of 
the currency had made Mr. Parkman's salary 
very inadequate to his needs. So poor was he 
that his gratitude is really touching when 
"December 4, 1778: At eve came Mr. Ehsha 
Forbes and his Wife to Visit us, and brought an 
extraordinary present. 31 pounds of Meat, 
Beef and Pork and a Cheese of 12 lbs., and 
supped with us. Mr. Forbes also offered yt if 
I would take one of ye Boston newspaper, he 
would pay for a year. May God reward his 
Benevolence and Generosity! " 

Individuals, then as now, were often more 
generous than the community of which they 
were a part. Thus, when the Town Meeting 
came to consider making Mr. Parkman " some 
further allowance, considering the vast increase 
of ye Necessaries of Life, it passed negatively." 
The worthy pastor's only comment upon this is : 



296 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" The proceedings of Ye Town yesterday were 
to my surprise." 

Old maids who hked to visit the minister and 
advise him as to his work were no more un- 
common in that day than in this. On May 24, 
1779, we read: *' Miss Ehza Beals came in to 
see me and consult me upon her Spiritual State 
— mentions several Scriptures She would have 
me preach upon, but which I have already. As 
to her bodily State, she is grown exceeding 
dropsical." 

This lethargic spinster, Miss Eliza Beals, was, 
on the whole, less of a thorn in Mr. Parkman's 
side than was Mrs. Persis Adams, who refused 
to live with her husband. On September 13, 
1779, we read: 

" Had some conversation with Mr. Daniel 
Adams about his wife living from him. He tells 
me he desires she would return and that he 
would do anything reasonable to obtain it. 
P. M. he came here, shewd me a Copy of 
a Letter which he had sent to her some 
time ago, desiring her to let him know what 
are her DifEcultys, and what she would have 
him do. To which letter she returned him no 
Answer." 

" September 21. I rode to Mr. Joseph Grout's 
to see Mrs. Adams who lives there. I dind 
there, though Mr. Grout and his Wife were 
gone to Boston. Mrs. Adams seems to be 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 297 

utterly unwilling to go to live with her Hus- 
band again." 

But ladies were not allowed to leave their 
husbands lightly in those days, and " a Com- 
mittee of ye Church " was soon appointed to 
go and reason with the reluctant Mrs. Adams. 
After which a Church Meeting took up "ye 
Affair " in an endeavor to bring " accuser & 
accused Face to Face." Mrs. Adams was 
present at this meeting, but her husband, 
*' though notified seasonably by a Messenger, 
sent on purpose by ye Pastor to him ", did not 
come. Then Mrs. Adams, two months later, 
" prays ye Church Meeting (to be otherwise 
next Monday) may be adjourned to some future 
time, inasmuch as she cannot get ready." Nor 
was she ready when the next appointed day 
came. Mistress Persis apparently knew her own 
mind and had made that mind up not to return 
to her husband. We are relieved when we read 
later that she is " now supposed to be trying 
for Relief in ye Civil Law ", and that Mr. Park- 
man, accepting this, " prayed and gave ye 
Blessing as ye Meeting was dissolved, Novem- 
ber 9, 1780." The good man had been working 
on this harassing matter for over a year; and 
at the age of seventy-seven such an annoyance 
might very well have been spared him. 

Another of Mr. Parkman's interesting charges 
was Tom Cook, " the honest thief ", who was 



298 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

believed to have sold himself to the Devil, and 
whose picturesque pilferings color many pages 
of mid-Massachusetts history. Tom's specialty 
was ingeniously withdrawing from him that had 
in order that he might bestow in Scriptural 
fashion on unfortunates that had not. Mr. 
Parkman had baptized him as a baby and so 
always took a fatherly interest in him. Thus 
we find in the journal, under date of August 27, 
1779: "The notorious Thom. Cook came in 
(he says) on Purpose to see me. I gave him wt 
admonn Instruction and Caution I could — I 
beseech God to give it Force! He leaves me 
with fair Words — thankf. and Promising." 

Covering almost the same period as the Park- 
man diary is that of Joshua Hempstead, which 
the New London County Historical Society 
published a few years ago. This is a diary in 
the strictest sense of the word — a systematic 
account of daily duties, occupations, and events, 
written by a busy, keen-eyed farmer who was 
also a man of affairs. If I were to be asked to 
name two books only, by reading which a good 
insight might be obtained into daily life in old 
New England, I think I should name Sewall's 
diary and this of Joshua Hempstead. 

The writer of this photographic account of 
life in Connecticut one hundred and fifty years 
ago was born and lived all his days in the house 
which is now the home of Anna Hempstead 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 299 

Branch, the poet, and which is well known to be 
the oldest house in New London. The original 
of the large octavo volume put out by the His- 
torical Society comprises about seven hundred 
and fifty pages of closely written manuscript 
without lines; these pages are twelve by seven 
and a half inches in size. They cover the years 
from 1711, when the diarist was thirty -three, 
to 1758, the year of his death. And just as 
Sewall tells us in his diary all about the often 
very important happenings of which he was a 
part, so Hempstead pictures for us the trivial 
little occurrences that made up the daily routine 
of a man who was at once a farmer, a surveyor, 
a house and ship carpenter, an attorney, a stone- 
cutter, a sailor, and a trader — performing, to 
boot, the offices pertaining to a justice of the 
peace, a judge of probate, and an executor of 
wills. Yet, such was the simplicity of the times, 
that on July 18, 1712, this same man writes: 
" I was at home all day making my Self a pr 
Linnen Breeches "! 

Hempstead, being a magistrate, had a hand 
in many of the sordid criminal trials of the day. 
When the rumor gets about that Sarah Bramble 
has given birth to a " Bastard Child not to be 
found ", it becomes his duty to investigate. And 
then follow horrible details of the manner in 
which the poor woman is believed to have killed 
her unwelcome offspring. These are in no wise 



300 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

different from such details when given in the 
yellow press of to-day. But not of our time is 
what follows: 

" Tuesday, April 14, 1752 a Lecture Sermon 
pr by ye Revd Mr Jewit on ye ocasion of Sarah 
Brambles Suposed Murder of her Bastard 
Child; She being present in the Broad ally & 
afterwards Comitted to Prison." No color, no 
comment. The child may have been dead when 
Sarah attempted to dispose of its remains by 
burning them, but prison followed swiftly just 
the same. 

Again, on October 5, 1756: "I was at the 
Court att the Meetinghouse in ye foren to hear 
the Tryal of Bristow a Negro man (belonging to 
the Revd Beckwith of Lyme) for Committing a 
Rape on the Body of Hannah Beebee Junr a 
young woman ... he was found Guilty & 
Received Sentance of Death next day." 

Joshua Hempstead died before the disturb- 
ances which led up to the Revolution had be- 
come acute, so that we have no entries covering 
those events. But Deacon John Tudor person- 
ally witnessed many of these interesting inci- 
dents and has left us some valuable descriptions 
of the first Stamp Act Riots, the Boston Mas- 
sacre, the famous Tea Party, and the Lexington 
skirmish. But the present volume is not con- 
cerned with wars and warriors; I much prefer, 
therefore, to quote the good deacon on the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 301 

union services held Sunday, November 10, 1782, 
in King's Chapel, Boston: 

"10 A. M. I went to the Chappie to hear 
Mr. Freeman Read prayers & preach. His Tex 
was Search the Scriptures. The Old South 
people met with the Church people. In the 
forenoon the Chh of England Service was car- 
red on & p. m. the Congregationl way. . . . 
And the Reason of the 2 Congregations meeting 
in this way was, that when the British troops 
had possession of the Town, they cruelly tore 
down all the inside of the Old South Meeting 
house to exercise their Horses in. So that when 
the people that were forssd oute of Town re- 
turn'd they was obliged to borrow the Chappie 
to meet in. . . . To me it was Agreeable to see 
former Bigatree so far gon & going off, and God 
grant that for Time to come boath Churchmen 
& Desenters may live in peace & Love." ^ 

Occasionally a diary shows us the innermost 
thoughts of a profoundly unhappy woman. 
The published extracts of Miss Rebecca Dick- 
inson's journal, for instance, give us some 
poignant glimpses into the corroding loneli- 
ness of a hopeless spinster. Miss Dickinson, 
familiarly called " Aunt Beck ", was a seam- 
stress, who traveled from house to house in the 
course of her work and was welcomed every- 
where for her wit and her gift of epigram. But 

1 Deacon Tudor's diary, p. %. 



302 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

there is nothing sparkhng about her diary, a few 
extracts of which follow : 

" July 25, 1787, makes me forty-nine years 
of age. ... I do wonder at myself that I 
should be so earthly-minded and look after the 
things of the world as though I should be the 
better for any of them or think those any more 
happy who have them. ..." The Sunday fol- 
lowing she reflects upon her lonesomeness, add- 
ing: " God only knows there is no person in the 
world who loves Company more than me." 
The Sunday following that, she spends part of 
the night wondering " how it come about that 
others and all the world was in Possession of 
Children and friends and a hous and homes 
while I was so od as to sit here alone." A wed- 
ding at a neighbor's home heightens the sting 
of these reflections. 

One evening, on returning home. Aunt Beck 
finds her house so dark and lonesome that she 
" walked the rooms " and " cryed " herself 
" sick." " Found my heart very stubborn," she 
records, " against the government of God who 
has set me here for to try my fidelity to my lord 
who knows the best way." 

Colic and pleurisy add to her trials. And 
then she encounters " an old acquaintance — 
was in Company with him ten years agoe he has 
sense very well married." This chance meeting 
disturbs her greatly — by reason of the fact 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 303 

that her former suitor asks her " if her name 
was changed " — and sends her home to medi- 
tate further on her lonely state, rebel at her 
fate, and finally repent of her wilfulness. 

Yet, after much agony of soul, Aunt Beck 
evidently decided, as many another single 
woman has done, that the unmarried state has 
its distinct compensations. For we find her 
ending her book on " the 8 day of August 1802 " 
with the reflection that though she is now in 
her sixty-fifth year, *' never did the goodness of 
god appeare more and brighter." ^ 

One of the most delightful diaries that has 
come down to us is that of Anna Green Winslow, 
who in 1770, at the age of ten, came from Nova 
Scotia, where her father was then stationed with 
his regiment, to be " finished " at the schools 
of Boston. She lived while in Boston with her 
father's sister (constantly referred to in the 
diary as " Aunt Deming ") in Central Court, 
which led out of Washington Street, just south 
of Summer Street; and she attended the Old 
South Church. Her diary, written day by day 
to be sent home to her parents, was given to the 
world in 1894 by Alice Morse Earle " and, 
though the work of a mere child, is of inesti- 
mable value for the vivid pictures it gives us 

1 " History of Hatfield." by D. W. and R. F. Wells. F. C. H. 
Gibbons, Springfield, Massachusetts. 

2 " Diary of Anna Green Winslow: " Houghton, Mifflin and Com- 
pany. 



304 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

of social life in Puritan Boston just before the 
outbreak of the Revolution. 

The whimsical little maiden who wrote this 
entertaining journal never lived to have chil- 
dren of her own. Though there is no town or 
church record of her death, she is believed to 
have passed away at Marshfield in the fall of 
1779, very likely in the house afterwards occu- 
pied by Daniel Webster, inasmuch as that was 
the family home of the Winslows in 1775. 

One of the early entries in this diary is on 
Anna's twelfth birthday, November 29, 1771. 
On this occasion she had a party, at which Lu- 
cinda, her aunt's slave-girl, was " principal pi- 
per ", as the four couples — all girls — enjoyed 
themselves at " country dansing, danceing, I 
mean." Among Anna's entries for the following 
month is the following : 

"Deer 30th: Yesterday between meetings 
my aunt was call'd to Mrs. Water's & about 8 
in the evening Dr. Lloyd brought little master 
to town (N. B. As a memorandum for myself. 
My aunt stuck a white sattan pincushion for 
Mrs. Waters. On one side is a plan thorn with 
flowers, on the reverse, just under the border 
are, on one side stuck these words, Josiah 
Waters, then follows on the end, Deer 1771. 
on the next side & end are the words. Welcome 
little Stranger.)" 

Which, being interpreted, means that in 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 305 

honor of the birth of Josiah Waters, at which 
Doctor James Lloyd, the famous Tory physi- 
cian, assisted, Mrs. Deming presented Mrs. 
Waters with a white silk pincushion stuck around 
the edge with pins. Pins were then highly 
valued from their rarity. A single paper of 
pins was considered a lifelong supply. Stories 
are told of mothers who brought up a large 
family on four rows; and grandmothers were 
wont to exhibit with pride the " great pins " 
that had formed a part of their bridal outfit. 
A thorn bush supplied the early substitute for 
pins; ladies, elegantly dressed and setting out 
for church, plucked from the bush near the 
front door a thorn or two with which to fasten 
rebellious laces. 

Anna, not being an Episcopalian, had not 
kept Christmas that year, but she records in her 
diary, on January 1, 1772, that she has received 
" a very handsome new year's gift viz. the His- 
tory of Joseph Andrews abreviated. In nice 
Guilt and flowers covers." This " Guilt " does 
not refer to Joseph Andrews's well-known lack 
of morality but to the decoration of the book- 
cover; Anna's '* History ", it is to be observed, 
was " abreviated," by which, we hope, expur- 
gated is meant. 

A very striking thing, however, about this 
twelve-year-old girl is that she is quite familiar 
with evil in its various forms as well as with the 



306 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

crude facts of life. She refers without any 
apparent feehng to the peccadilloes and punish- 
ments of a certain Betty Smith, who seems to 
have been a family servant at one time, but 
who " when the 29th Regiment encamp'd upon 
the common took herself among them (as the 
Irish say) & there she stay'd with Bill Pinchion 
& awhile. The next news of her was that she 
was got into gaol for stealing; from whence she 
was taken to the publick whipping post." 

Familiarity with this whipping-post had prob- 
ably made little Anna dull to its horrors. It 
stood at this time, according to Samuel Breck, 
" conspicuously and prominently in the most 
public street of the town and was painted red. 
It was placed in State Street directly under the 
windows of a great writing-school which I fre- 
quented, and from them the scholars were in- 
dulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punish- 
ment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize 
their feelings. Here women were taken in a 
huge cage, in which they were dragged on wheels 
from prison, and tied to the post with bared 
backs on which thirty or forty lashes were be- 
stowed, among the screams of the culprit and 
uproar of the mob. A little further in the street 
was to be seen the pillory with three or four 
fellows fastened by the head and hands, and 
standing for an hour in that helpless posture, 
exposed to gross and cruel jeers from the multi- 




BOSTON'S OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE, ABOUT 1800. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 307 

tude, who pelted them incessantly with rotten 
eggs and every repulsive kind of garbage that 
could be collected." Inasmuch as little Anna 
had frequently encountered sights such as these 
on her way to and from school, it is perhaps not 
so odd that she should refer unfeelingly to the 
case of Betty Smith. 

Death was another appalling fact of life with 
which this child seems to have been early made 
famihar. In speaking of the " departure last 
week " of Mr. Stephen March, she regrets that 
she has not heard the particulars of his com- 
plication of disorders and so cannot inform her 
mother " whether he engag'd the King of 
terrors with christian fortitude, or otherwise. 

" ' Stoop down my Thoughts, that use to rise. 
Converse a while with Death; 
Think how a gasping Mortal lies, 
And pants away his Breath.' " 

We certainly should not expect a well-bred 
child of to-day to drop thus unfeelingly into 
poetry while writing to her family of the death 
of an old and valued friend. 

Anna was very fond of rehearsing the sermons 
that she heard, and, inasmuch as it was her 
custom to attend with her aunt the evening 
*' assembly," held each week at Mrs. Kogers', 
before which one of the ministers of the Old 



308 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

South delivered a discourse, we have many 
curious abstracts from the preaching of that 
day. Thus we learn that " Mr. Bacon . . . 
said that the Son of God always did as his 
father gave him commandment, & to prove this, 
he said, that above 17 hundred years ago he left 
the bosom of the Father, & came & took up his 
abode with men, & bore all the scourgings & 
buffetings which the vile Jews inflicted on him, 
& then was hung upon the accursed tree — he 
died, was buried, & in three days rose again — 
ascended up to heaven & there took his seat at 
the right hand of Majesty on high from whence 
he will come to be the supream and impartial 
judge of quick & dead — and when his poor 
Mother & her poor husband went to Jerusalem 
to keep the passover & he went with them, he 
disputed among the doctors, & when his Mother 
ask'd him about it he said * wist ye not that I 
must be about my father's business,' — all this 
he said was a part of that wrighteousness for 
the sake of which a sinner is justafied — Aunt 
has been upstairs all the time I have been write- 
ing & recollecting this — so no help from her. 
She is come down now & I have been reading 
this over to her. She sais, she is glad I remem- 
ber so much, but I have not done the subject 
justice. She sais I have blended things some- 
what improperly." 

Anna was in many ways a real child, however. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 309 

as is seen in her frequent and very proud refer- 
ences to her Aunt Storer, who Hved on Sudbury 
Street, where she particularly enjoyed visiting. 
Under date of April 15, 1772, we read: " I am 
going to Aunt Storer 's as soon as writing school 
is done. I shall dine with her, if she is not en- 
gaged. It is a long time since I was there, & 
indeed it is a long time since I have been able 
to get there. For though the walking has been 
pretty tolerable at the South End it has been 
intolerable down in town. ... If she had 
wanted much to have seen me she might have 
sent either one of her chaises, her chariot, or 
her babyhutt, one of which I see going by the 
door almost every day. 

" April 16. — I dined with Aunt Storer yes- 
terday. My cousin Charles Storer lent me 
Gulliver's Travels abreviated, which aunt says 
I may read for the sake of perfecting myself 
in reading a variety of composures, she sais 
farther that the piece was desin'd as a burlesque 
upon the times in which it was wrote." 

This " Aunt Storer " was Mrs. Ebenezer 
Storer, the sister of Anna's mother. Her hus- 
band was for many years treasurer of Harvard 
College, and their home on Sudbury Street was 
the center of much elegant hospitality. We do 
not wonder as we read of the rich Persian carpet 
of her drawing-room; of her window-seat with 
its curtains and cushions of green damask; of 



310 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

her oval mirrors and girandoles, and of her 
dining-room with its wide chimney-piece lined 
and ornamented with Dutch tiles, that Anna 
liked to visit here. 

Aunt Storer was a person of much elegance, 
as her beautiful portrait painted by Copley 
well shows; and when little Anna rebelled at 
the enormous " heddus," or pompadour roll, 
to which the exigencies of fashion had con- 
demned her, only observed that it " ought to 
be made less ", whereas Aunt Deming declared 
with emphasis that it " ought not to be made at 
all! " " It makes my head itch & ache, & burn 
like anything Mamma," writes our little dia- 
rist of this same roll. *' When it first came home, 
aunt put it on, & my new cap on it, she then 
took up her apron & mesur'd me, and from the 
roots of my hair on my forehead to the top of 
my notions, I mesur'd above an inch longer 
than I did downwards from the roots of my hair 
to the end of my chin. Nothing renders a young 
person more amiable than virtue & modesty 
without the help of false hair." Yet poor Anna 
had to keep her roll, for this was the era in 
which head-dresses were all of extravagant 
height, and barbers were blithely advertising, 
as did a certain Salemite, that he would " attend 
the polite construction of rolls to raise ladies' 
heads to any pitch desired." 

Mary Osgood Sumner, who was mysteri- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 311 

ously lost at sea with her sister, Ann, and an- 
other sister, kept her child-diary in parallel 
columns the more easily to contrast her sins 
of omission and commission. Thus, under the 
" Black Leaf ", we read of such dire offenses as 
leaving her " staise " on the bed or spilling 
coffee on the table. 

This is not a long nor a heinous list. Her 
entries on the " White Leaf " are much more 
extended. Like many another of us, she ap- 
pears to have enjoyed her virtues more than 
she lamented her sins. 

Mary Moody Emerson was another con- 
scientious young person who kept a diary and 
recorded therein her daily endeavor to do her 
duty and to satisfy at the same time the hunger 
of her eager young mind: 

*' Rose before light every morn," she writes, 
" and visited from necessity once and again for 
books; read Butler's Analogy; commented on the 
Scriptures; read in a little book, Cicero's Let- 
ters, — a few; touched Shakespere, washed, 
carded, cleaned house, baked. To-day cannot 
recall an error, nor scarcely a sacrifice, but more 
fulness of content in the labors of a day never 
was felt. There is a sweet pleasure in bending 
to circumstances while superior to them." This 
last sentence might have been a quotation, 
aforetime, from one of her famous nephew's 
essays; Aunt Mary, even when a girl, had 



312 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

much of the wholesome respect for Hfe as it is, 
which characterizes Emerson. Her journal 
is very different in tone from that of another 
young student, which I have seen in manu- 
script, and in which, day after day, I found 
recorded only the single word " Melancholy." 

Keeping a diary, quite often, of course, pro- 
moted in the young a tendency towards morbid 
introspection. But it did not inevitably do so. 
Stephen Salisbury of Worcester, whose corre- 
spondence with his mother ^ supplies us with a 
very interesting picture of college life at Cam- 
bridge in the second decade of the nineteenth 
century, appears to have been a delightfully 
normal youth. Just after he had matriculated, 
at the age of fifteen, he writes home, naively: 
" I should be much obliged if you would send 
me four short curtains, such as I have no doubt 
you have seen, which are put on a little below 
the middle of the window and I should like to 
have them made with rings so as to draw.'* 
A few days later he refers again to the cur- 
tains. *' I have just received my bundle and 
was much disappointed in not receiving my 
curtains; for I cannot do without them for 
when we are dressing nothing hinders people 
who are going by from looking in upon us; not 
only that but saucy young fellows, going by, 

'Salisbury Papers: American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, 
Massachusetts. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 313 

first look in to see whether there are those 
within strong enough to oppose them and if there 
are not they strike on the window to frighten 
us and ahnost push it in now if we had curtains 
they would not know how large we were." 

The fond mother at home, however, still does 
not send the curtains. Instead she counsels 
thus with her son concerning them: 

" Worcester 3d Novr 1813 

*' My dear Child, 

" You are still, I find, very desirous of having 
Curtains to your Windows, & did I know that 
you would be accommodated by them as you 
expect, I would indulge you, but I can hardly 
suppose it, those who would intrude on you 
at improper seasons and otherwise behave im- 
properly, would still do so tho' you had curtains. 
Could they not look thr'o or over them.'' . . . 
I wish, my dear, that you should always be in a 
situation to be seen by any who may call, which 
you certainly will if you are in the path of duty, 
do not I entreat you let triffling and childish 
pursuits "take your time and attention from 
your studies, and so be obliged to get your lesson 
at a late hour, that would be foolish conduct & 
I hope you will avoid it. I hope you had your 
Hair Cut some of these fine warm days we have 
had, & that you dont fail to comb and brush 
your hair ev'ry day. if it has not yet been cut 



314 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

take some fine day and do not have it cut very 
short, do not neglect your teeth, if you do they 
will be the worse for what has been done to 
them, clean them ev'ry day I charge you. 
keep yourself clean & neat, it is not incompatible 
with your duties, nor unbecoming in the Scholar, 
be assured. 

" Your affectionate mother 

"E. Salisbury." 

Apparently Stephen needed this little homily 
on the efficacy of the tooth-brush for we find 
him complaining constantly of toothache; when 
he is half through his first year at college his 
mother writes: " Cannot you, my dear, collect 
courage sufficient to have the worst one ex- 
tracted.^ " Then she adds, as a postscript to her 
letter: " Will you accept of a little Ginger- 
bread my Son? but take care not to make your 
poor tooth ache. You had better cut but little 
of it at a time." For though gingerbread seems 
to us of to-day a childish treat for a Harvard 
student, it figured largely in the cash account 
which Stephen sent home. Other items of ex- 
penditure are: 

for crape 25 

biscuit 02 

apples to teamster 25 

G.Bell 06 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 315 

Cuting hair 18 

pears 02 

Cake 06 

chestnuts 12 

football 06 

Hoarhound candy 12 

sealing wax 12 

Oysters 07 

stages 50 



The stage from Boston to Cambridge ran 
twice daily at this time, at twelve o'clock and 
again at six. But freshmen were not encouraged 
to make use of this accommodation more than 
once a month and Stephen is sternly questioned 
by his father on more than one occasion as to 
why he went again to Boston " so soon after 
you left it." 

The trousers of this student were a great care 
both to him and to his mother. " I have sent 
you white pantaloons," she writes towards the 
end of his freshman year; " you may like to 
wear them of a very hot Sabbath with your 
thin Coat & white socks, if you wish to appear 
well dressed at any time wear white socks with 
your Nankin pantaloons. I would not have 
you wear those blue clouded socks in to Boston, 
keep yourself neat, not forgetting the soap — 
comb — & toothbrush." 

Then, with true motherly zeal, she sends a 



316 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

relay of pantaloons unexpectedly, only to re- 
ceive from the boy in Cambridge this troubled 
note: " I was very sorry to see two pair of nan- 
kin pantaloons for I dont see how I shall man- 
age to wear them all; and by next year they 
will be so small that I shall be obliged to have 
them peiced and you know how I dislike that, 
it looks very ill; but if they had not been made 
until next year they would have been fitted for 
my shape and I have enough for this season be- 
sides them." 

Wounded maternal love, mixed with offended 
New England thrift, speaks in the reply to this: 
" I was disappointed that my present to you 
last week, of 2 pr Nankin pantaloons, were not 
rec'd with gratitude — more especially as they 
were made of an article which was not new, 
& intended merely for the present season — I 
hope you will acknowledge to me that you 
have found them very comfortable." He did 
so acknowledge, of course, but he repeated just 
the same his fear that they would be " too small 
for next season." Stephen had evidently suf- 
fered in the past from " peiced " pantaloons. 

Of a new gown there are several similar men- 
tions. The nature of this article is defined in 
the College Laws of 1807 as follows: " All the 
undergraduates shall be clothed in coats of blue 
grey, or of dark blue, or of black. And no 
student shall appear within the limits of the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 317 

College or town of Cambridge in a coat of any 
other color, unless he shall have on a night 
gown ^ or, in stormy or cold weather, an outside 
garment over his coat. Nor shall a surtout, or 
any outside garment of any other color than a 
blue grey, or dark blue or black, be substituted 
for the uniform coat. But the Students are 
permitted to wear black gowns, in which they 
may appear on all public occasions. They shall 
not wear gold or silver lace, cord or edging upon 
their hats, waistcoats, or any other parts of their 
clothing." 

The college course was then only three years 
long, so young Salisbury found himself a junior 
when he returned to Cambridge in August, 
1815. Immediately he joined the militia with 
his parents' warm approval, and he also regis- 
tered with a dancing class. " We approve of 
your attending the dancing School," his mother 
wrote, " only be verj^ careful of coming out 
warm into the Air. it will not I trust break in 
upon more important excercises — you will prob- 
ably want a pair of Dancing pumps, thick Shoes 
will not be proper to learn in, you can get a pair 
in Boston, but do not go in on purpose, once a 
week is quite often enough to go in to Boston." 

As the time of Stephen's own Commencement 
approaches, we learn of a " black slk gown 

^ The reference here is to a species of dressing-gown, not to a 
garment to be worn in bed. 



318 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

which the government have advised the stu- 
dents to adopt as their distinguishing badge, 
to be worn only on public occasions." Appears 
again, too, the inevitable pantaloons! " You 
advised me to get thin pantaloons and some 
silk ones for Commencement — I thought I 
would defer it till I wrote you. I have thin 
grey pantaloons, you know, which are quite 
handsome and this summer will be so cold 
that I shal not probably have need of any. 
I have hardly felt a desire for them yet 
so that if you please I should rather not get 
any this season." Mrs. Salisbury is, however, 
quite certain that the summer will be hot and 
strenuously urges a pair of thin pantaloons for 
Commencement. Just what kind of pantaloons 
the proud senior actually did wear on this 
important occasion we do not know. But we 
know that his Commencement part was in a 
Conference, which three others shared with 
him, " On the influence of the peace upon the 
condition of the agriculturist, the manufacturer, 
the merchant, and the professional man." 

Of Stephen's Commencement spread, held 
*' at Mr. Hearsey's in Cambridge ", we read in a 
previous chapter. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 319 



CHAPTER VIII 

HAVING A PICTURE TAKEN 

THOUGH the Puritans frowned on graven 
images and had no sympathy with art, 
as we understand the word, they were 
far from averse to endowing posterity with their 
somewhat forbidding features ; scarcely had the 
first century of pioneering drawn to a close 
when the leading worthies of the day began to 
have their portraits painted. Thus we have 
Cotton Mather's astonishingly worldly counte- 
nance, as Peter Pelham painted it; Samuel 
Sewall's personable figure has been preserved 
for us by Smibert; and the kindly face of good 
Bishop Berkeley has also been transmitted to 
us, as seen and put on canvas by this English 
painter, who was his friend. 

John Smibert journeyed to America in 1728, 
intending to occupy a chair in Bishop Berkeley's 
proposed college for Indian youth. When this 
project turned out to be a dream, Smibert 
married him a New England wife and stayed 
on here to paint the portraits of well-known 
Americans. That it was not then infra dig. for 



320 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

a portrait painter to turn an honest penny in 
any way that he could may be seen from the 
following advertisement, which I copy from 
the New England Weekly Journal of October 
21, 1734: 

*' John Smibert, Painter; Sells all sorts of 
Colours, dry or ground, with oils and brushes, 
fanns of several sorts, the best Mezzotinto, 
Italian, French, Dutch and English Prints, in 
Frames and Glasses or without, by wholesale or 
Retale at reasonable Rates; at his House in 
Queen-Street, between the Town-House and the 
Orange Tree, Boston." 

Smibert did some of the earliest and best por- 
traits executed in America before the Revo- 
lution, perhaps his most successful production 
being his portrait of Jonathan Edwards. His 
work is of great historical value, and he has 
every right to first mention in our list of picture- 
makers of New England. 

The earliest native colonial painter with any 
claim to remembrance to-day was, however, 
Robert Feke, a descendant of Henry Feake, 
who emigrated to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1630, 
and a branch of whose family settled at Oyster 
Bay, Long Island. From this place the future 
artist came to Newport, Rhode Island. But 
before marrying and settling down, Feke en- 
joyed some wander-years in Spain, the influence 
of which is to be seen in his pictures; his work is 




COTTON MATHER. 
From the portrait by Peter Pelham. 




SAMUEL SEWALL. 
From the portrait bi, Smibcrt, in the possession of the Massaohusetts Historical Society. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 321 

far less hard and dry than that of Smibert, with 
which it is often confused. His portraits of 
Governor and Mrs. Bowdoin, in the possession 
of Bowdoin College, are still fresh and natural 
in coloring and are also good in drawing and 
expression. Feke died at Bermuda, whither he 
had gone for his health, at the early age of 
forty-four. 

Contemporary with Smibert and Robert Feke 
was Jonathan B. Blackburn, whose work may 
be found on the walls of many a museum and 
ancestral home of New England. Blackburn 
came to Boston the year before Smibert died, 
and during the next fifteen years executed por- 
traits of more than fifty well-known New Eng- 
landers of the day. Then he went away quite 
suddenly, the probable reason for his abrupt 
departure being that he could not stand the 
competition offered by the work of John Single- 
ton Copley, the greatest of our native portrait 
painters. Copley was the stepson of Peter 
Pelham, who was himself a painter and en- 
graver of considerable talent. Yet the young 
man was really almost entirely self-taught, and 
his career is, therefore, the strongest possible 
refutation of the oft-repeated fallacy that no 
good work can be expected of a man who has 
not had the benefit of "art atmosphere", asso- 
ciation, that is, with other painters, and the 
opportunity to study the famous pictures of 



322 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

the world. So successful was he and so generally 
did the great folk of his time sit to him, before 
he left New England in 1774, that the mere 
possession of a family portrait from Copley's 
brush has long been held to be a kind of patent 
of nobility in Massachusetts. 

Critics have pronounced the four portraits of 
the Boylston family, which hang in the great 
dining-room of Harvard Memorial Hall in 
Cambridge the best examples of Copley's por- 
trait work and have declared the portrait of 
Mrs. Thomas Boylston the high-water mark of 
his art. The painting of the artist's family, 
however, which hangs in the Boston INIuseum of 
Fine Arts, is perhaps the most impressive canvas 
of his to be found in New England to-day, and 
is highly interesting, besides, because it shows 
us Copley himself, with his beautiful wife, his 
lovely children, and his dignified father-in-law. 
One feels very strongly the parent's love for his 
cherished children as well as the artist's pleas- 
ure in good subjects, as one studies the quaint 
figure of the little girl which has a prominent 
place in the front of this group, and the charm- 
ing picture of the younger child, laughing up 
into its mother's face. 

Copley may well have painted his wife and 
family con amove, for he was exceedingly for- 
tunate in the marriage he had made. His father 
had died the year of his birth, — which occurred 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 323 

in Boston in 1737, — and Peter Pelham, who 
had married Mrs. Copley when John was nine 
years old, himself passed away two years 
later. So that this lad with a genius for paint- 
ing was the penniless son of a widow, who had 
to support herself by keeping a tobacco shop! 
Fortunate, indeed, was his alliance, in 1769, 
with the beautiful daughter of Richard Clarke, 
a wealthy merchant who was the Boston agent 
for the East India Company. 

Already, to be sure, Copley had made his 
place as an artist. His " Boy and The Flying 
Squirrel ", sent anonymously to the Royal 
Academy when he was twenty-three, had opened 
a place for him in England whenever he should 
decide to go there. For the present, however, 
he was staying on in Boston, painting portraits. 
It was as much a matter of course for rich New 
Englanders to have their wives and daughters 
painted by Copley as to send their sons to 
college. During the twenty-year period that 
he thus worked in America, nearly three hun- 
dred portraits were turned out in his studio! 

In painting women, Copley was especially 
successful. He had a keen feeling for beauty 
in line, color and texture, and the women's 
dress of his time fed this taste. Copley's grand- 
daughter, Mrs. M. B. Amory, who has written 
a capital biography of him, declares that he 
had theory and principles about line and color. 



324 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

which he carried out with scrupulous elaboration 
for the sake of heightening the charm of the 
picture. " The rose, the jewel in the hair, the 
string of pearls around the throat were no acci- 
dental arrangement," she writes, " but accord- 
ing to principles of taste which he thoroughly 
understood. The hair ornamented in harmony 
with the full dress of the period ; the fall of lace 
shading the roundness and curve of the arm, 
were perhaps unimportant details in themselves, 
but conduced by their nice adjustment to the 
harmonious effect of the composition. Added 
to these, he delighted to place his subject among 
kindred scenes: sometimes we catch a glimpse, 
in the distance, of garden or mansion; or at 
others of the fountain and the grove, the squir- 
rel, that favorite of his brush, the bird and 
the spaniel — all treated with equal grace and 
felicity." 

The best contemporaiy glimpse of Copley, 
the successful painter of Boston's dignitaries, 
has been provided for us by another painter, of 
whom we shall soon be speaking. Colonel John 
Trumbull, who, while a student at Cambridge, 
was taken by his brother to call at the artist's 
residence. This was in 1772, after Copley had 
obtained possession of his *' farm " on Beacon 
Hill. " His house," Trumbull writes, " was on 
the Common where Mr. Sears elegant grand 
palazzo stands [now occupied by the Somerset 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 325 

Club]. A mutual friend of Mr. Copley and my 
brother, Mr. James Lovell, went with us to 
introduce us. We found Mr. Copley dressed 
to receive a party of friends at dinner. I re- 
member his dress and appearance, an elegant- 
looking man, dressed in a fine maroon cloth, with 
gilt buttons. This was dazzling to ray unprac- 
ticed eye. But his paintings, the first I had 
ever seen deserving the name, riveted, absorbed 
my attention, and renewed all my desire to 
enter upon such a pursuit." 

Copley himself had never seen any pictures 
at the time he did some of the portraits which 
are most valued in New England to-day. The 
painting of his family, to be sure, he did after 
he had settled down to live in England. And 
it was then, too, that he did the Abigail Brom- 
field, which so realistically gives the effect of a 
windy day, the John Adams now in the pos- 
session of Harvard College, and the exquisite 
portrait of John Quincy Adams, which hangs 
in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. But the 
dignified portrait of John Hancock and the 
piquant one of Dorothy, his wife, both of which 
are also in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 
are very good examples of Copley's early work 
and belong to the period before he left Boston. 

Much of the value of Copley's portraits we 
owe to the infinite pains which he took. He 
sadly tried the patience of his subjects by his 



326 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

minute care and thorough fidehty in the execu- 
tion of a picture. So absorbed was he in the 
canvas before him that he required that his 
sitter should always bring a friend to keep up 
the flow of conversation and produce the ani- 
mation which it was his task to bring out in line 
and color. No persuasions, no complaints of 
fatigue, could induce him to slight the most 
unimportant detail. And after hours of patient 
attention, the unfortunate sitter would often 
return to find every trace of the preceding day's 
work obliterated, and the faithful artist alertly 
ready to begin his task all over again ! 

Gilbert Stuart, who probably ranks next to 
Copley as an American painter of portraits, 
was also New England born. Unlike Copley, 
however, he had enjoyed every advantage of 
study and travel before he began his life-work. 
It is very much to be doubted whether, if the 
conditions of Stuart's life had been like those 
which confronted Copley, he would ever have 
attained eminence as a painter. Still, having 
made the human head his sole and lifelong 
object of study, he was able to produce por- 
traits of supreme excellence. Of Washington 
alone he has left us three likenesses of the first 
rank, namely, the " Athenaeum " portrait, the 
" Vaughan " portrait and the " Lansdowne " 
portrait. His " Athenaeum " portrait is held 
to be the typical Washington and perhaps the 




M 3 



2^ - 

< .9 

z s 




GENERAL HENRY KNOX. 
From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 327 

best work he ever did; but the spirited paint- 
ing of Washington's friend, General Henry 
Knox, as he stands out, vigorous and soldierly, 
in the canvas at the Boston Museum of Fine 
Arts, should be given high rank in any list of 
this artist's work. 

Stuart was not so fortunate as Copley in the 
period of his zenith, though he was far more 
fortunate in early opportunities. Cosmo Alex- 
ander, an artist over here on a visit, had seen 
some of the Rhode Island lad's early work and 
was so impressed by its promise that he took 
Stuart back to England with him, promising to 
put him in the way of good instruction over 
there. But Alexander died as soon as he reached 
home, and his protege was left friendless and 
penniless in a strange and hostile land. After 
two years of struggle to educate himself at Glas- 
gow University, Stuart returned to America in 
the hope of being able to support himself here 
as a painter. But the rich men of the country 
did not feel rich just then, and with war clouds 
looming over their heads, sitting for their por- 
traits was the last thing they had heart to 
undertake. So Stuart again sailed for Europe, 
taking refuge this time with West, that excel- 
lent American and friend of all rising young 
artists. West taught him gladly and gave him 
a home in his family. In ten years the young 
American was able to set up a studio for him- 



328 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

self and command such prices as no one but 
Reynolds and Gainsborough then charged. 

In the height of his success, however, Stuart 
grew suddenly desirous of returning to his 
native land and, abandoning all his English 
friends, he sailed, in 1792, for New York. Two 
years there, followed by a sojourn in Philadel- 
phia and another in Washington, intervened 
before he came back to New England. Then 
he settled down to spend the rest of his life 
in Boston. For many years his home and 
painting-room was in Washington Place, Fort 
Hill, where his geniality and charm as a conver- 
sationalist drew many sitters, all of whom soon 
assumed in his presence their most characteris- 
tic expressions and so met half-way the artist's 
determination to get a faithful portrait. Gil- 
bert Stuart was a great physiognomist. He 
could read a man's character almost from a 
glance at his face. When Talleyrand was in 
Boston, he went to call at the artist's studio; 
after the wily Frenchman had withdrawn, 
Stuart observed to a friend, *' If that man is 
not a villain the Almighty does not write a 
legible hand." Events proved that the artist 
had read aright the meaning of Talleyrand's 
evil face. Stuart used to say of his work that 
portrait painting, as he conceived it, was " copy- 
ing the works of God and leaving clothes to the 
tailors and mantua-makers." Stuart had the 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 329 

gift of pungent expression and of quick wit. 
When he met Samuel Johnson in Europe, and 
that personage, after expressing great aston- 
ishment that the American did not look more 
like a red Indian, inquired solicitously where 
he had learned English, Stuart flashed back: 
" Not from your dictionary." 

A contemporary of Stuart's was Trumbull, 
whose account of a visit to Copley's studio was 
quoted above. Trumbull, like Stuart, studied 
in England with West. But before enjoying 
this opportunity to cultivate the art of his 
choice, he had been successively a schoohnaster, 
a Revolutionary officer, and a man of business 
in Paris. It was Franklin, whom he met in the 
French capital, who gave him a letter to West. 
On the arrival in London of the news of Andre's 
execution, Trumbull, because he was the son 
of the Revolutionary governor of Connecticut ^ 
and had been aide-de-camp to Washington, fell 
under suspicion as a spy and was thrust into 
prison. At the end of eight months, he was 
released, but only through the potent influence 
of West. West believed that Trumbull would 
win his greatest success as a painter of historical 
scenes, and it was in the studio of the Quaker 
that " Bunker's Hill " and the " Death of 
Montgomery " were both painted. Sir Joshua 

^ Trumbull's mother was the great-granddaughter of John Rob- 
inson, who led the Pilgrim Fathers out of England and was their 
pastor until they sailed from Holland for the New World. 



330 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Reynolds, seeing the latter canvas there, ad- 
mired it extremely and congratulated West on 
his improvement in color; he was not at all 
pleased when told that the work had been done 
by Trumbull, one of whose portraits he had 
recently dismissed with the peevish criticism 
that the coat in it looked " like bent tin." 

The various personages in Trumbull's famous 
*' Declaration of Independence " were all por- 
traits, for though the work was started while 
the painter was staying with Jefferson in Paris, 
years were spent in making the faces in the 
picture faithful to their distinguished originals. 
" Mr. Hancock and Samuel Adams," writes 
Trumbull, " were painted in Boston; Mr. 
Bartlett at Exeter, New Hampshire, etc." 
Yet the patriotic portrait by which this artist 
is best remembered to-day is of a man who was 
not of the Signers' group — Alexander Hamil- 
ton. This very brilliant and beautiful work is 
now in the Yale University School of Fine Arts, 
which has a rich collection of Trumbull's work. 

The arrangement by which these pictures 
came to Yale is highly creditable to both parties 
concerned in that it made a dignified and com- 
fortable old age possible for the artist and 
brought to Yale treasures which will steadily 
increase in value with the passing of the years. 
In return for an annuity of one thousand dol- 
lars to be paid to Trumbull by Yale in quarterly 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 331 

installments from 1837 until his death, his 
paintings were there assembled in what was 
known as the Trumbull Gallery. And when 
the artist passed away, he and his wife were 
buried on the Yale campus, close to the work 
to which he had given his life. Trumbull's 
wife was a very great beauty, as her husband's 
portrait of her, which is also at Yale, clearly 
shows. This portrait is almost her only history. 
But though " her early name and lineage were 
never divulged ", we know to-day that she was 
an Englishwoman, the daughter of Sir John 
Hope. Many are the stories told of her eccen- 
tricities and of the occasions when she was over- 
come " by something stronger than tea." But 
her husband's tribute to her is all that we need 
to quote here : 

" In April, 1824, I had the misfortune to lose 
my wife, who had been the faithful and beloved 
companion of all the vicissitudes of twenty -four 
years. She was the perfect personification of 
truth and sincerity, — wise to counsel, kind to 
console, by far the more important and better 
half of me, and with all, beautiful beyond the 
usual beauty of women." 

These words we may well believe, as we gaze 
at the exquisite portrait, which was the artist's 
memorial to his lost love. For daintiness is 
written all over these delicate features and this 
rose-leaf skin, while the fluffy locks, which peep 



332 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

out from under the enchanting cap, and the 
evanescent smile on a very sweet mouth all 
show Mrs. Trumbull to have been a woman of 
much charm — as well as of great beauty. 

Washington Allston, who was a friend of 
Stuart's and who, though born in South Caro- 
lina, passed the greater part of his professional 
life in Boston and Cambridge, was another 
artist renowned in the New England of his day 
though his fame was at no time due to his suc- 
cess as a portrait painter. 

A very dear friend of Allston's was Edward 
G. Malbone, painter of miniatures. James 
Peale was an early artist in this field, and an 
Irish gentleman named Ramage executed many 
small likenesses in Boston in 177L But Mal- 
bone, who was born in Newport, Rhode Island, 
in 1777, easily outstripped them all and at the 
early age of seventeen was successfully executing 
miniatures in Providence. The spring of 1796 
saw him fairly established as a miniature painter 
in Boston, after which New York, Philadelphia, 
and Charleston were, in turn, his homes. From 
the Southern city he sailed, for the sake of his 
never-rugged health, to Europe, accompanied 
by Allston; and West was very anxious that he 
should settle in London. But Malbone was a 
devout American and was resolved that, even if 
his span proved to be a short one, he would pass 
it in the land of his birth; he died in May, 




MRS. JOHN TRUMBULL. 
From the painting by her husband now in the possession of Yale University School of 

Fine Arts. 




MRS. K. C. DERBY. 
From the miniature by Maibone, Metropolitan Museum of Art, N. Y. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 333 

1807. Yet Malbone has left behind him work 
so exquisite that his name will never cease to 
occupy a high place among the great artists of 
America. " He had the happy talent," Allston 
wrote of him, " of elevating the character with- 
out impairing the likeness." Remarkable as 
this was in his miniatures of men, it was still 
more to be noted in the women he painted. 
*' No woman ever lost any beauty from his 
hand; the fair would become still fairer under 
his pencil." His miniature of Mrs. Richard 
Derby of Boston, herewith reproduced, bears 
this out, I think. 

Samuel F. B. Morse, much better known as 
the inventor of the electric telegraph than as a 
painter, — though he did some portraits which 
are very creditable likenesses, — Francis Alex- 
ander, and Chester Harding are other New 
Englanders who were prolific portrait painters 
in the early nineteenth century. Alexander, 
born in Windham County, Connecticut, in 
February, 1800, started out in life as a school- 
master, and while free of routine duties for a few 
days, — because of some slight indisposition, — • 
attempted to reproduce in water-color the evan- 
escent colors of some fish he had caught. His 
mother encouraged him, and Trumbull lent him 
heads to copy. Then, with infinite difficulty, he 
scraped together money enough to go to New 
York for a short period of study, after which he 



334 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

set up as a professional painter. A commission 
came to him to paint a family at Providence, 
Rhode Island, and when this had been success- 
fully executed, he went to Boston, where his 
work was soon in great demand by reason of its 
intelligence and sensibility. 

Great as was Alexander's vogue, it paled, how- 
ever, before that of Chester Harding, a self- 
taught New Englander, who, in 1823, became 
so much the fashion that even Stuart was 
neglected and used to ask sarcastically: "How 
goes the Harding fever? " Harding was born 
in 1792, in the little mountain village of Conway, 
Massachusetts, of a family so poor that at the 
age of twelve he " hired out " to a farmer in a 
near-by town for the modest sum of six dollars 
a month. When Chester was fourteen, the 
family emigrated to Western New York, and 
very fascinating is the story ^ of this promising 
lad's subsequent rise to fame and fortune. Few 
were the eminent men of the United States that 
Harding did not put on canvas during the first 
thirty years of his career; and in London, as 
well, he made likenesses of many great per- 
sonages of the day, including the poet Rogers. 
Harding was a most buoyant personality, with 
a delightful sense of humor. He was always 
especially delighted at the story of a lady who 

^ " Chester Harding, Artist," edited by his daughter: Houghton, 
Mifflin and Company. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 335 

had recently died and whose pet cat had for 
several days been wandering dejectedly about 
the house in search of something which she 
missed. At last she entered a room where a 
Harding likeness of her late mistress was stand- 
ing on a sofa. The creature at once gave a 
bound and tried to settle herself in her accus- 
tomed place on the old lady's lap. 

When the artist returned to New England 
from his sojourn abroad, the first picture that 
he painted was that of Emily Marshall, then 
the reigning beauty of Boston. He declares 
that he did not succeed to his own satisfaction 
in the resulting portrait, and it is certainly hard 
to understand, from this sole record of the 
great beauty, why workingmen should have 
been willing to forego their noonday meal 
merely to look upon her face. Harding's por- 
traits of Webster and many other celebrities 
were very highly esteemed in his day and are 
still interesting as likenesses. But the man was 
far greater than his painting, I take it; it was 
undoubtedly to his simple, frank, social nature 
rather than to his power as an artist that he 
owed his astonishing success. 

Other popular portrait painters of old New 
England were John Hazlitt, who executed many 
likenesses in Hingham, soon after the Revolu- 
tion; Ralph Earle, who painted many Con- 
necticut people in something of the Copley 



336 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

manner; and Joseph Ames, who is associated 
with many pictures of Webster. 

G. P. A. Ilealy, who was born in 1807 and 
Hved to be nearly ninety, was a prohfic painter 
of New England people. Among those who sat 
to him were Longfellow, Webster, John Quincy 
Adams, and Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis. His 
immense historical picture, " Webster replying 
to Hayne," which hangs in Faneuil Hall, Boston, 
contains no less than one hundred and thirty 
portraits. 

Portrait painters, then as now, were for the 
rich and great, however. Most of us would 
never leave any counterfeit presentment behind 
for our sorrowing friends if we had to depend 
on portrait painters to preserve our features. 
And this is the very reason why we have so 
few likenesses, save of the well-to-do, made 
before the days of the miniature, the silhouette, 
the wax portrait, and the daguerreotype. Mal- 
bone made miniatures for fifty dollars; daguerre- 
otypes could be had for about three dollars 
apiece. The middle ground, both from the 
point of view of art and of expense, was occupied 
by the wax portrait, that interesting and elusive 
likeness modeled in relief, about which Mrs. 
Charles K. Bolton has recently written so de- 
lightfully ^ and of which the Oliver Holden 

1 " Wax Portraits and Silhouettes," Massachusetts Society of 
Colonial Dames of America. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 337 

portrait, herewith reproduced, furnishes an ex- 
cellent example. 

The beginnings of wax modehng as an art 
are lost in a past which is beyond history, but 
those desirous of learning all that may be known 
on this subject are referred to Mrs. Bolton's 
interesting brochure. For our purposes it will 
suffice just to touch here on the fact that 
Patience Lovell Wright, an American of Quaker 
descent, modeled portrait heads in wax, when 
left a widow in 1769, and acquitted herself with 
so much skill that Horace Walpole deigned to 
bestow high praise on her portraits of the Eng- 
lish aristocracy. Her full-length portrait of 
Lord Chatham in his official robes was accorded 
the further honor of a place in Westminster 
Abbey. To-day Patience Wright is referred to 
by experts who are also historians as our second 
American artist. 

Following Mrs. Wright, though evidently 
some distance behind, was John Christian 
Rauschner, a Dane, who modeled a number of 
Salem people (about 1810) and who executed 
also our Oliver Holden, now owned by Frank 
J. Law ton, of Shirley, Massachusetts. The 
wax in this portrait, as in all the portraits made 
by Rauschner, is colored all the way through, 
only the small parts, like eyes, eyebrows, and 
shadows being painted in. Rauschner's work 
is in lower relief than Mrs. Wright's and shows 



338 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

somewhat less skill in handling the facial 
muscles. " Nevertheless his portraits are fas- 
cinating, and call us back," as Mrs. Bolton well 
says, " to a time that is gone. The ladies are 
all so genteel in their dotted muslin gowns, their 
hair done up with combs or covered with queer 
mobcaps. And each lady has some favorite 
ring or brooch in facsimile upon her finger or 
in her dress. Curls are there in infinite variety, 
coyly hanging before the ear or more obviously 
upon the forehead. The gentlemen, too, are 
bedight in their best, with their black or brown 
coat and stock. Some wore frills and some wore 
neck-cloths with long ends." Oliver Holden's 
mobile face, with its deep dimples, looks out 
over a trimly fitted stock. It is easier to con- 
nect this face with the titled Irishman who was 
Holden's kin than with Coronation. 

Another modeler in wax, who did portraits 
of many New England people, was Robert Ball 
Hughes, who was born in London in 1806 but 
lived most of his life in Dorchester, Massachu- 
setts. Hughes's reliefs were all modeled in 
white wax, and he worked for many years to 
find a formula by means of which he could pro- 
duce a composition evenly and permanently 
white. In his quest he was successful, but died 
with his secret still untold. His portraits are all 
very delicately modeled, a particularly beauti- 
ful example of his best work being the portrait 




A KAKE WAX PUKTKAIT OF OLU EK HOLDEN, CO.M- 
POSER OF " COROXATION." 

In the possession of Frank J. I-:»wton, Shirley, IMass. 




d S M 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 339 

of Mrs. Mary Miller Quincy, wife of the second 
Mayor Quincy of Boston, now in the possession 
of Mrs. Mary Quincy Thorndike of Boston. 

Practically contemporaneous with the wax 
portrait was the silhouette, which used to be ex- 
changed among friends early in the nineteenth 
century, very much as photographs are to-day. 
The silhouette has been called the poor relation 
of the miniature and the forerunner of the 
daguerreotype. Black profile portraiture, at 
its best, and as practised in Europe, was a thing 
of real beauty, — almost worthy to take its place 
with the best miniature painting. xA.t its worst, 
" paper cutting " was a quaintly appealing 
handicraft interesting to the social historian 
because of the side-lights it throws on men and 
manners of a vanished day. 

Strange confusion has arisen in the minds of 
many admirers of silhouettes on account of 
the name. Black profile portraiture was prac- 
tised in Europe long before Etienne de Sil- 
houette economized in the public finance de- 
partment of Louis XV, cut portraits of his 
friends for a pastime, and so caused the wits of 
the day to call by his name whatever was cheap 
and common. For of course these paper por- 
traits were very cheap compared to a painting 
on canvas, a delicate miniature or even the com- 
paratively low-priced wax portraits. *' The 
days of fustian and the proletariat were coming; 



340 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

paper portraits instead of painting; then the 
apothecary picture-man, as Ruskin calls the 
photographer Daguerre." ^ 

Originating in France, and flourishing greatly 
in Germany at the period when Goethe and his 
friends were making literature and history at 
the Court of Weimar, the silhouette soon 
reached England and penetrated through roy- 
alty and the nobility to the middle and then 
to the lower classes. It is curious to think of 
George III, that ogre of New England, sitting 
for a scissors portrait to his daughter, the 
Princess Elizabeth; and it is a far cry from the 
silhouette as a diversion for royalty to the 
itinerant artist thus delightfully described by 
Sam Weller in the inimitable letter to Mary: 

" So I take the privilege of the day, Mary, 
my dear, — as the gen'l'm'n in difficulties did 
yen he valked out of a Sunday — to tell you 
that, the first and only time I see you, your 
likeness was took on my hart in much quicker 
time and brighter colours than ever a likeness 
was took by the profeel macheen (wich p'raps 
you may have heerd on, Mary, my dear), 
altho' it does finish a portrait and put the frame 
and glass on complete, with a hook on the end 
to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and a 
quarter." 

Mrs. Bolton cleverly observes that in Eng- 

1 " History of Silhouettes," by E. Nevill Jackson. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 341 

land, professional silhouetting, at any rate, 
started witli Mrs. Pyburg, who made black 
paper portraits of King William and Queen 
Mary. " After reading English books upon 
silhouettes, you feel that you should as soon 
forget your mother's name, or the date of the 
Battle of Hastings, as forget Mrs. Pyburg. 
She began things, she is like Adam and Eve; 
and after Mrs. Pyburg, nothing, until in the 
early nineteenth century England began to 
send us here in America her prodigies." 

One silhouettist from England who made a 
great success in America was Master Hubard, 
so called from the fact that he began the prac- 
tice of his profession at the early age of twelve. 
When he was seventeen, he landed in New York, 
and for many years itinerated in the United 
States, making silhouettes at a cost of fifty 
cents apiece. While in Boston, Hubard worked 
at the Exchange Coffee House, cutting full- 
length portraits by hand in twenty seconds. 
Mr. Joye and Mr. Bache were other silhouettists 
who practised their art in New England, but 
the true successor of Master Hubard was un- 
doubtedly Master Hanks, whom we find ad- 
vertised in 1828 as *' capable of delineating 
every object in nature and art with extraordinary 
correctness.'* 

A silhouettist of the early nineteenth cen- 
tury," who was of real New England stock, was 



342 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

William M. S. Doyle, who, in December, 1811, 
advertised ^ as follows : 

Wm M. S. DOYLE 

Miniature and Profile Painter 
Tremont Street, Boston, next House north of the 
Stone-Chapel, the late residence of R. G. Amory, 
esq. Continues to execute Likenesses in Miniature 
and Profile of various sizes (the latter in shade or 
natural colours) in a style peculiarly striking and 
elegant, whereby the most forcible animation is 
obtained. 

Some are finished on composition, in the manner 
of the celebrated Miers, of London. 
'.'Prices of Profiles — f7'om 26 cents to 1, 2 & 5 

dollars. 
Miniatures — 12, 15, 18 and 20 dollars. 

One of Doyle's cuttings, while in Boston, was 
of Bishop Cheverus, Boston's Roman Catholic 
prelate of fragrant and gracious memory. Doyle 
is particularly interesting as the only Boston 
silhouettist of any note and because he was 
the partner of Daniel Bowen, who, in 1791, es- 
tablished a museum opposite the Bunch of 
Grapes Tavern on State Street. In 1795, Bowen 
and Doyle were at the corner of Bromfield and 
Tremont Streets. But here they were visited 
by fire in 1803 and again in 1807. 

1 Credit for discovering this advertisement is due to Miss H. C. 
Cattanach of the Boston Athenaeum. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 343 

William King, another American silhouettist, 
thus advertises his art in the New Hampshire 
Gazette of Tuesday, October 22, 1805: "Will- 
iam King, taker of Profile likenesses, respect- 
fully informs the ladies and gentlemen of Ports- 
mouth that he will take a room at Col. Wood- 
ward's on Wednesday next, and will stay ten 
days only to take profile likenesses. His price 
for two profiles of one person is twenty-five 
cents, and frames them in a handsome manner 
with black glass in elegant oval, round, or 
square frames, gilt or black. Price from fifty 
cents to two dollars each." Silhouettes at 
the rate of two for a quarter would seem to be 
within the reach of pretty much anybody who 
wanted to have a picture taken. It was high 
time for Edouart to come over from England 
and raise the standard of this curious and in- 
teresting art! 

Black paper pictures were called silhouettes 
first in England, — and by the Frenchman chiefly 
responsible for their great vogue there and in 
America, x\uguste Edouart. Edouart had been 
obliged to leave France for political reasons 
and, having lost nearly all his property in Hol- 
land (in 1813), found himself in England with 
scarcely any money and so advertised that he 
would give French lessons. This not proving a 
satisfactory source of income, he began to make 
portraits out of human hair, proceeding from 



344 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

this to cut profiles by hand as a form of protest 
against the disrepute into which this work had 
fallen by the introduction of mechanical de- 
vices. His portraits were almost always cut 
in full length, because he believed that this was 
the only way to make an accurate likeness, and 
he was quite successful in catching character- 
istic poses and gestures. It was his habit in the 
British Isles to travel from one town to another 
in the practice of his profession and once, at 
Edinburgh, he made no less than six hundred 
likenesses in a fortnight. In 1835 he wrote a 
book which he called " Silhouette Likenesses." 
Edouart kept a careful record of the people 
whose profiles he perpetuated, and he had a very 
high sense of personal honor in the matter of 
guarding the features committed to his care. 
" Ladies are never exhibited," he advertised, 
*' nor duplicates of their likenesses either sold 
or delivered to anyone but themselves or by 
their special order." 

In 1839, taking with him his volumes of 
English, Scotch, and Irish portraits for pur- 
poses of exhibition, this interesting artist sailed 
for America, where he stayed for ten years, 
making innumerable portraits in New York, 
Saratoga, Philadelphia, Norwich, and Boston, 
as well as in many cities of the south. In Cam- 
bridge he cut Longfellow, the Appleton family, 
the president of Harvard, and dozens of pro- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 345 

fessors and students of the college, while in 
Boston he made a shadow picture, against his 
own home background, of the Reverend John 
Pierpont and family as well as of several other 
well-known people. 

Many of the portraits which Edouart did 
while in America were sunk in the shipwreck 
which he experienced on his way home in De- 
cember, 1849. He was then an old man, and 
exposure, added to the loss of the greater part 
of his life's work, so preyed upon his mind and 
health that he never again practised his pro- 
fession. 

America was by no means dependent upon 
Europe, though, for successful practitioners of 
this Black Art. William Henry Brown, a na- 
tive of Charleston, South Carolina, made very 
many paper portraits all over the United 
States, establishing in each town which he 
visited a shop which, for the time, bore the 
name of the Brown Gallery. He, too, has 
written a book ^ about his sitters and has illus- 
trated the work with twelve of his silhouettes, 
mostly full lengths with elaborate backgrounds, 
as well as with facsimile autograph letters of 
the people whose portraits are reproduced in 
the volume. 

1 " Portrait Gallery of Distinguished American Citizens, with 
biographical Sketches," by William H. Brown, and facsimiles of 
original letters. Hartford. Published by E. B. and E. C. Kellogg, 
1845. 



346 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Enter now Daguerre, " the apothecary pic- 
ture man!" Samuel F. B. Morse, who was an 
artist as well as a scientist, was the principal 
means of introducing to this country the results 
of Daguerre's experiments. In 1839 Morse 
journeyed to Paris for the purpose of securing 
a patent covering his telegraphic apparatus; 
but he had made all arrangements to return to 
America when, in conversation with the Amer- 
ican Consul, Mr. Robert Walsh, he one morn- 
ing remarked: " I do not like to go home with- 
out having first seen Daguerre's results." Mr. 
Walsh suggested that Daguerre be invited by 
Morse to see his telegraphic apparatus, in re- 
turn for which courtesy he would doubtless 
invite the American to see his pictures. And 
it so fell out. 

Daguerre had not yet succeeded in making 
portraits, and he told Professor Morse that he 
doubted if it could be done; but already he 
could show absolutely perfect images of streets, 
buildings, interiors, and works of art, and for 
these Morse's enthusiasm was unbounded. 
Then Niepce, who for fifteen years had been 
experimenting independently with methods of 
fixing the image of the camera obscura — an in- 
strument known for nearly two centuries — met 
Daguerre, and the two pooled their discoveries. 
Thus the process was pushed forward to a point 
where pictures of people were made possible. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 347 

France, which had the honor of this great dis- 
covery, honored itself by treating with ex- 
treme hberahty the two men who had brought 
their experiments to a successful issue. Daguerre 
was given an annual pension of six thousand 
francs and Niepce one of four thousand francs, 
on condition that they publish their process. 
This condition was accepted, and Daguerre 
hastened at once to put Morse, who had mean- 
while returned to America, in possession of all 
knowledge necessary to practise this new art 
with entire success. At once Morse's brothers, 
Sidney E. and Richard C. Morse, fitted up on 
the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, 
New York, what they called their " palace of 
the sun." 

Then, in the fall of 1839, there arrived in this 
country a teacher direct from Daguerre himself, 
Frangois Gouraud, who, in March, 1840, en- 
joyed a very successful season in Boston, finally 
publishing a pamphlet embodying his lectures 
and giving a '' provisory method for taking 
Human Portraits." This method was by no 
means simple. Not only must the room be of 
certain shape and kind, but " the chair on 
which the person sits must be of yellow wood. 
The person, if a man, must be dressed in a clear 
gray coat; pantaloons of a little deeper hue; 
a vest of a fancy ground, — yellow, orange, if 
possible, — with figures of a color to make a 



348 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

contrast; the whiteness of the shirt contrasting 
with a cravat of a gray ground either a httle 
less dark or more deep than the coat. The 
toilet of a lady should be of the same shades, 
and in all cases black must be constantly avoided, 
as well as green and red." That the eyes of the 
subject should be closed was, at first, considered 
another condition necessary to success. The 
time of the exposure was from ten to twenty 
minutes. 

Mr. Francis Colby Gray, a leader in Boston 
art affairs and one of the directors of Harvard 
College, interested himself greatly in Gouraud 
and made it possible for his first classes to as- 
semble in the sacred precincts of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society; but by the end of 
1840, the methods this teacher advocated had 
been so greatly improved that several men in 
Boston were taking daguerreotypes as a means 
of livelihood, and the traveling car began to 
penetrate into all parts of New England. 

" Monday was looked upon as the best day 
for business," observes Mrs. D. T. Davis — 
to whose delightful article,^ "The Daguerreo- 
type in America," I find myself deeply indebted, 
" because of the Sunday night courtship, the 
first outcome of which was the promise to ex- 
change daguerreotypes. No less sure than Mon- 
day itself came the gentleman escorting his 

1 McClurc's Magazine, November, 1896. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 349 

sweetheart. He selected the most expensive 
cases and paid for both pictures. And it was 
a happy man in these instances that put the 
maiden's picture into his pocket, for he knew 
there was but one ' counterfeit presentment ' 
of her in existence, and he had it." 

The most famous studio in New England 
was that of South worth and Hawes, which 
opened at 19 Tremont Row, Boston, in 1841, 
and which, for more than half a century, kept 
on doing business at this same old stand. 
Webster and Pierce, Garrison and Sumner, 
Wendell Phillips, Emerson, and Charlotte Cush- 
man were a few of the distinguished people of 
whom Mr. Hawes here made likenesses. But, 
happily, the time had now come when people 
who were neither rich nor distinguished could 
have their pictures taken. 



350 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER IX 



READING BOOKS 



IT was to be expected, I suppose, the motive 
behind tJie settlement of New England 
being what it was, that the only books 
cordially recommended by pastors and masters, , 
in early days, were those which dealt with the 
relation of the soul to God. " When thou canst 
read," counselled Thomas White, a Puritan 
minister, " read no ballads and romances and 
foolish books, but the Bible and the Plaine 
Man's Pathway to Heaven, a very holy book for 
you. Get the Practice of Piety, Mr. Baxter's 
call to the Unconverted, Allen's iVlarm to the 
Unconverted, and The Book of Martyrs." 

In a catalogue of Harvard College, printed 
in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, 
there is no mention of any book by Addison, 
of any of the poems of Pope or of the many 
works which had recently been put out in Eng- 
land by Dryden, Steele, Young, and Prior. 
And not until the year 1722, according to so 
careful a chronicler as Alice Morse Earle, were 
the works of Shakespeare advertised in Boston! 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 351 

The scarcity and limited scope of books, out 
in the country, even as late as the first quarter 
of the nineteenth century, is painful to con- 
template. It is doubtful if any typical New 
England village could have assembled more 
than one hundred books — outside of religious 
works! A bookish boy, looking about for some- 
thing to read, would perhaps have been able to 
lay hands on Josephus, Rollin's " Ancient His- 
tory ", " The Pilgrim's Progress ", Pollok's 
*' Course of Time ", Cowj^er, and a few lives 
of celebrated preachers. Shakespeare, Dryden, 
Pope, Addison, and Johnson might have been 
found lurking in secret corners, but would have 
been by no means easily accessible. And Byron, 
Burns, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Keats were 
then as caviare to the general, as the poems of 
Tagore might be to Down East farmers to-day. 

No " profane " author was ever quoted in a 
discourse; and every author was " profane ", 
who did not write upon religious subjects and 
along evangelical lines. It was the settled 
policy of the religious leaders of New England 
to ignore all poets except Milton and all prose 
writers except Bunyan. In fact, the Bible was 
held to be the only really reputable book. And 
so the Bible was read over and over again. 
Robert Hale records in his diary that he is read- 
ing the Bible for the one hundred and thirty- 
fourth time! 



352 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Now and then, however, one comes upon 
surprising evidence that the great books of the 
world were sometimes read in remote corners 
of New England. Who would think to find 
the fisherfolk of Siasconset, on the island of 
Nantucket, reciting long passages from Butler's 
" Hudibras " and reading Josephus with deep 
enjoyment in the eighties of the eighteenth 
century? According to so veracious a chronicler 
as Crevecoeur,^ however, this really happened. 
He himself wondered about it as much as we 
could. " No one knows who first imported 
these books," he comments. And then, concern- 
ing the Nantucketers' fondness for Butler's 
witty satire on Puritanism, adds: " It is some- 
thing extraordinary to see this people, pro- 
fessedly so grave, and strangers to every branch 
of literature, reading with pleasure the former 
work, which would seem to require some degree 
of taste and antecedent historical knowledge. 
They all read it much, and can by memory re- 
peat many passages." 

This was no more typical reading among late 
eighteenth-century fisherfolk, of course, than 
were the books enjoyed by Mary Moody Emer- 
son typical literary provender of a maiden born 
just before the outbreak of the Revolution. 
The early reading of Emerson's aunt included 
Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, and 

' " Letters from An American Farmer." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 353 

Jonathan Edwards; and later she greatly en- 
joyed Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, 
Stewart, Coleridge, Cousin, Herder, Locke, 
Madame De Stael, Channing, Mackintosh, and 
Byron. Of no other woman of her generation, 
probably, was it true that " Plato, Aristotle 
and Plotinus were as venerable and organic as 
Nature in her mind." But of many of her con- 
temporaries it might very likely have been 
said, as her distinguished nephew further says 
of her, that " Milton and Young had a religious 
authority in their minds and nowise the slight 
merely entertaining quality of modern bards." ^ 

In very few men, indeed, were the Latin and 
Greek sages " organic." The languages of the 
ancients were, of course, studied, as languages, 
by youths who were preparing for the ministry; 
but most New England parsons did not regard 
the classics of these tongues with any great 
affection, for the reason that they served to 
keep alive familiarity with false gods. 

A notable exception in this way was the 
Reverend John Checkley, who, in 1738, suc- 
ceeded the Reverend Arthur Browne as rector 
of the King's Church, Providence. Browne 
had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin, 
and is said to have come to America with Dean 
Berkeley. In 1730 he entered upon his pastor- 
ate at Providence and served there very ac- 

^ Atlantic Monthly, December, 1883. 



354 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

ceptably until he resigned to become the rector 
of St. John's Church in Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
shire. Checkley, his successor in the Rhode 
Island town, was a man of varied and colorful 
history. Born in Boston in 1680 and educated 
at the Boston Latin School, he went to Oxford 
to complete his studies and then traveled ex- 
tensively in Europe, collecting everywhere man- 
uscripts, paintings, and books. After which 
he returned to Boston and opened a book-shop. 
This was in 1717. 

Checkley called his little shop the " Crown 
and Blue-Gate " and, being the man he was, 
soon made it a literary center. But, before many 
months, the shocking news leaked out that the 
strange doctrine of the Apostolic Succession 
was here being urged. Following which, the 
bookseller turned author and publisher and, in 
support of his extraordinary views, offered to 
the Boston public two j^amphlets, which so 
stirred the Massachusetts authorities that 
Checkley was at once called upon to take the 
oaths of allegiance and abjuration. This the 
proprietor of the " Crown and Blue-Gate " 
declined to do and, as an alternative, paid a 
fine of six pounds. 

Apparently Checkley had already made up 
his mind to become a priest of the Church of 
England; but fourteen long years passed before 
he was accepted as a candidate, and when he 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 355 

was, the parish offered him was the one Browne 
had just left. But he accepted gladly the op- 
portunity which thus offered to follow the ca- 
reer he had chosen for himself and, journeying 
to Providence, established himself and his books 
in the comfortable rectory which Browne had 
generously endowed. At this time, his library 
numbered nearly a thousand volumes and in- 
cluded many folios and quartos in Greek, Latin, 
Hebrew, French, and other languages. To 
which he was able to add, upon the death of his 
parishioner and friend, John Merritt, in 1770, 
thirty pounds' worth of " Books which he may 
chuse out of my Library according to the value 
in the Catalogue." Mr. Merritt was also a 
bibliophile, and among his books were many 
volumes of English poetry and essays, such 
classics as Csesar, Horace, Marcus Aurelius, 
and the plays of Sophocles, works on agricul- 
ture, dictionaries, and gazetteers as well as a 
considerable array of volumes dealing with 
theology. Checkley chose wisely from among 
all these, and since he was a man who used 
books as well as owned them, the influence of 
the treasures in his possession was enormous. 
For he eked out his slender income by tutoring, 
and he often lent his books to his pupils. Thus 
he helped greatly to foster, in pre-Revolution- 
ary Providence, the habit of reading books. A 
century before his time, the largest library in 



356 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

this important town had been owned by WilHam 
Harris and consisted of twenty-six volumes, 
eleven of which were law books. ^ 

All this while scarcely anything of the first 
order, however, had been written in New Eng- 
land. The first two centuries of this country's 
history were precisely the centuries during 
which, in old England, poets, historians, novel- 
ists, and essayists had produced many immortal 
works. Yet, although many of the colonists 
were liberally educated men, no work of un- 
questionable genius appeared prior to Bryant's 
" Thanatopsis " and Irving's " Sketch Book." 
The platitudes of the " Bay Psalm -Book " was 
about the average of our literary production; 
and the verse of Anne Bradstreet is the best 
that we can show up to the nineteenth century. 
It was not then recognized that the letters of 
Abigail Adams and the diary of Samuel Sewall 
were literature; it remained for our own day to 
accord to these lively and veracious accounts 
of contemporary occurrences the high standing 
they deserve. Mrs. Adams's friend, Mercy 
Warren, on the other hand, was highly re- 
garded as a literary woman, though nobody in 
our time would have the patience to read her 
tiresome poems and her long, dull tragedies. 

The first " prolific " American author was 

' " Providence in Colonial Times," by Gertrude Selwyn Kim- 
ball: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 357 

Cotton Mather. He wrote upwards of four 
hundred books and found this occupation so 
congenial that he declared work to be his recre- 
ation, while play was to him a toil. Reading 
the results of his recreation would be a " toil " 
to-day, not to say the severest of hard labor, 
both because of their matter and their manner. 
Most of Mather's writings are a faithful mirror 
of the man, and the man, at any rate on his 
writing side, was a narrow-minded egotist. 
As a preacher, he seems to have been con- 
scientious and sincere; as a pastor, he was ten- 
der and devoted. But the fasts and vigils to 
which he subjected himself, the rules by which 
he governed every event in his life, are so faith- 
fully recorded in his four hundred books as to 
make almost any one of them painful. 

The most famous production of this typic- 
ally Puritan writer was called " Magnalia 
Christi Americana; or the ecclesiastical history 
of New England from its first planting, in the 
year 1620, unto the year of our Lord, 1698." 
The " Magnalia " was published in London 
in 1702; its author never said a truer word 
than when, in an unconsciously naive moment, 
he pronounced it " bulky." For this work is 
divided into seven parts and concerns itself 
with (1) The History of the Settlement in 
New England; (2) Biographies of governors; (3) 
Lives of eminent divines and others; (4) His- 



358 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

tory of Harvard College; (5) " The faith and 
order of the churches; " (6) Illustrious and 
wonderful providences; (7) Struggles of the 
New England churches with " their various 
adversaries " — the Devil, Separatists, Fami- 
lists, Antinomians, Quakers, clerical impostors, 
and Indians. Professor Moses Coit Tyler pro- 
nounces this work, despite its great and obvious 
faults of style, the most famous book of all Cot- 
ton Mather's works and, what constitutes real 
praise, " the most famous book produced by 
any American during the Colonial time." ^ 
We may as well accept this dictum; it car- 
ries with it no obligation to read the " Mag- 
nalia " in toto. One fact that no writer con- 
cerning old New England can blink, however, 
is that Cotton Mather has included in this ap- 
palling work pretty much everything that is 
known about our early history. 

'' The Wonders of The Invisible World " is 
another famous product of Cotton Mather's 
tireless pen. This work, in a very special way, 
shows Mather in relation to his times. The 
age was one of delusions and superstition, and 
Cotton Mather was its chief exponent. He was 
as sure as he was sure of heaven that before the 
Puritans came to New England the Devil had 
reigned over this fair land. He believed, in 
fact, that his Satanic Majesty still reigned in- 

1 " History of American Literature," Moses Coit Tyler, p. 80. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 359 

termittently in the persons of certain of the new 
settlers. This was his explanation of witch- 
craft. He believed so firmly in witchcraft that 
he made other people believe in it; thus his in- 
fluence and his writings were very largely re- 
sponsible for the witch persecutions with which 
the pages of New England history are black- 
ened. 

To credit Cotton Mather with having in- 
creased witchcraft is not to account for its 
early manifestations. Michelet's explanation 
is that in the oppression and dearth of every 
kind of ideal interest in rural populations, some 
safety-valve had to be found, and that there 
very likely were, at one time, organized secret 
meetings — actual witches' Sabbaths, so to 
say — to supply this need of sensation. The 
thing once started in a degenerate community 
grew, of course, by what it fed upon, just as 
suicidal mania and " disappearing girls " are 
increased, in our own day, by the screaming 
headlines of the yellow press. Within a few 
months, in Salem, several hundred people were 
arrested as witches and thrown into jail! Things 
soon came to such a pass that as Governor 
Hutchinson, the historian of the time, points 
out, the only way to prevent an accusation of 
witchcraft was to become an accuser oneself; 
just as, during the Reign of Terror in France, 
men of property and position frequently threw 



360 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

suspicion on their neighbors' heads, the better 
to save their own. 

Cotton Mather had never heard of hypnotism 
and suggestion, but he had heard of the Devil 
and, being convinced that the Devil was work- 
ing through witches, he held it as a sacred duty 
to write his conviction large. He had taken 
under his personal care the Goodwin children, 
who were believed to be witches, and had stud- 
ied their cases very carefully. Who, better than 
he, could serve God by putting the Devil to 
flight? 

A bare outline of the facts about these famous 
children, as given in Governor Hutchinson's ac- 
count and reproduced by Mr. Poole in the 
*' Memorial History of Boston," is as follows: 

*' In 1687 or 1088 . . . four of the children 
of John Goodwin, a grave man and good liver 
at the north part of Boston, were generally 
believed to be bewitched. I have often heard 
persons who were in the neighborhood speak of 
the great consternation it occasioned. The 
children were all remarkable for ingenuity of 
temper, had been religiously educated, were 
thought to be without guile. The eldest was a 
girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had 
charged a laundress with taking away some of 
the family linen. The mother of the laundress 
was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and 
gave the girl harsh language; soon after which 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 361 

she [thue Goodwin child] fell into fits which were 
said to have something diabolical in them. 
One of her sisters and two brothers followed 
her example, and, it is said, were tormented in 
the same part of their bodies at the same time, 
although kept in separate apartments and igno- 
rant of one another's complaints. . . . Some- 
times they would be deaf, then dumb, then 
blind; and sometimes all these disorders to- 
gether would come upon them. Their tongues 
would be drawn down their throats, then pulled 
out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoul- 
ders, elbows and all other joints would appear 
to be dislocated, and they would make the most 
piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with 
knives, beat, etc., and the marks of wounds 
were afterwards to be seen. 

" The ministers of Boston and Charlestown 
kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled 
house; after which the youngest child made no 
more complaints. The others persevered and 
the magistrates then interposed, and the old 
woman was apprehended; but upon examination 
would neither confess nor deny, and appeared 
to be disordered in her senses. Upon the re- 
port of physicians that she was compos mentis, 
she was executed, declaring at her death the 
children should not be relieved." 

The kind of book Cotton Mather would write 
from such data as this is more pleasantly imag- 



362 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

ined than perused. For here, ready to hand, 
were horrors after Mather's own heart. That 
he would squeeze every last drop of agony out 
of them goes without saying. Only less painful 
than the subject matter of this book is its style. 
Yet the book was a " best seller " in its day, 
notwithstanding the fact that Cotton Mather 
here shows himself most pitiably a pedant. 

Pedantry, to be sure, would necessarily mark 
a life so warped and stunted by precosity as 
was Mather's. " At the Age of little more than 
eleven years," he writes of himself, " I had 
composed many Latin exercises, both in prose 
and verse, and could speak Latin so readily, that 
I could write notes of sermons of the English 
preacher in it. I had conversed with Cato, 
Corderius, Terence, Ovid and Virgil. I had 
made Epistles and Themes; presenting my 
first Theme to my Master, without his requiring 
or expecting as yet any such thing of me; where- 
upon he complimented me Laudabilis Diligentia 
tua. I had gone through a great part of the 
New Testament in Greek. I had read con- 
siderably in Socrates and Homer, and I had 
made some entrance in my Hebrew grammar. 
And I think before I came to fourteen, I com- 
posed Hebrew exercises and Ran thro' the other 
Sciences, that Academical Students ordinarily 
fall upon." 

Such a boyhood could not be expected to 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 363 

produce a man with great humanity; Cotton 
Mather is a perfect illustration of Buffon's con- 
tention that " style is the man himself." Thus, 
while his early writings are pedantic and big- 
oted, his later ones are steeped in bitterness. 
For he lived to see the downfall of the theoc- 
racy which had meant so much to him, and he 
suffered a grievous personal disappointment 
in not being elected president of Harvard Col- 
lege as his father had been before him. 

It is in Mather's " Magnalia " that we first 
come upon the name of Anne Bradstreet, " whose 
poems, divers times printed, have afforded a 
grateful entertainment unto the ingenuous, 
and a monument for her memory beyond the 
stateliest marbles! " It is a pleasure to pass 
from the Mathers to the short and simple an- 
nals of New England's first woman-poet. 

Anne Bradstreet's early days were passed in 
surroundings favorable to poetic development, 
and a good deal that is really beautiful may, 
therefore, be found in her verses. She was 
born in England in 1612; her father was stew- 
ard of the estates of the Puritan nobleman, the 
Earl of Lincoln, and the impressionable days 
of her childhood were many of them passed in 
the earl's library, among the treasures of which 
she was permitted to browse at will. When 
she reached the age of sixteen, she married 
Simon Bradstreet, a graduate of Cambridge 



364 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

University, and two years later sailed bravely 
away with him to the rudenesses and hardships 
of New England. " I found a new world and 
new manners," she says, " at which my heart 
rose. But after I was convinced it was the way 
of God, I submitted to it." 

In 1644, having previously tried their fate 
in a number of other places, the Bradstreets 
settled on the outskirts of Andover, Massachu- 
setts; and there the poet lived the rest of her 
life and died in 1672. The house with which 
she is intimately associated (in North Andover) 
still stands. Its frame is massive, its walls are 
lined with bricks, and in its heart is an 
enormous chimney, heavily buttressed. Anne 
Bradstreet died in an upper chamber of this 
pleasant mansion, and on its sloping lawn to- 
day are trees which she long ago planted. It is 
believed that her remains were interred in the 
old burying-ground directly adjoining, but no 
trace of her grave can be found here. 

Her poems, however, live and must be ac- 
corded a high place in any American anthology 
of verse. Almost all American singers have 
chanted either the sea or the changing beauties 
of some dearly loved river. It was a river of 
which Anne Bradstreet sang, the Merrimac. 
In certain Hues of her Contemplations, inspired 
by this stream, we find the first authentically 
poetic note in American literature: 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 365 

" Under the cooling shadow of a stately elm. 

Close sat I by a goodly river's side, 
Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm; 

A lonely place, with pleasure dignified. 
I once that loved the shady woods so well. 
Now thought the rivers did the trees excel. 
And if the sun would ever shine, there would I 
dwell." 



Anne Bradstreet was a very prolific poet, 
but Michael Wigglesworth stood not far behind 
her in the multitude of verses which he pro- 
duced. And his masterpiece, which bore the 
engaging title. The Day of Doom, exceeded in 
popularity any other work, whether in prose 
or verse, produced in America before the Revo- 
lution. Eighteen hundred copies of its first 
edition were sold within a single year, which 
implies, as Professor Tyler points out,^ the pur- 
chase of one copy by every thirty-fifth person 
then in New England. Surely, an astonishing 
record for an age when reading books of any 
kind was far from being a national habit. 

This great poem which, with entire uncon- 
sciousness, attributes to the Divine Being " a 
character the most execrable to be met with, 
perhaps, in any literature. Christian or pagan," 
now impresses the reader only as a curious and 
interesting literary phenomenon; but its fearful 

^ " History of American Literature: " New York, G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons. 



366 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

lines seemed the literal truth to the first three 
or four generations who perused them. Joseph 
T. Buckingham mentions that even after the 
Revolution he read this book with great ex- 
citement and fright; and Lowell playfully re- 
marks that it " was the solace of every fireside, 
the flicker of the pine-knots by which it was 
conned perhaps adding a livelier relish to its 
premonitions of eternal combustion." Every- 
body believed devoutly in the Hell here so 
luridly pictured. It is not strange, therefore, 
that for more than a hundred years after its 
first publication. The Day of Doom continued 
to be the supreme poem of Puritan New England. 
Cotton Mather cheerfully predicted that it 
would continue to be read in New England 
until the day of doom itself should arrive. 

Another large poem of Wigglesworth's had 
the curious title: Meat out of the Eater. This 
was first published about 1669 and served to 
comfort the afflicted of the Colonial age very 
much as Tennyson's In Menioriam comforted 
the bereaved of the mid- Victorian era. The full 
title of this poem is Meat out of the Eater; or. 
Meditations concerning the necessity, end, and 
usefulness of afflictions unto God's children, all 
tending to prepare them for and comfort them un- 
der the Cross. 

In spite of the enormous sales achieved by 
Wigglesworth, books were not yet bought at 



^ 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 367 

all generally in New England. When the Rev- 
erend Thomas Harvard, minister of King's 
Chapel, died (in 1736) happy in the belief that 
he would find " no Gout or Stone " in heaven; 
he left a library of " only ninety works, mostly 
small and of poor quality." Yet he was an 
active writer — perhaps of such books as this 
from the pen of a fellow-parson, which I find 
advertised in the Boston News-Letter of Septem- 
ber 9, 17-25: 

" There is now in the Press, & will soon be 
published, The Strange Adventures & Deliver- 
ances of Philip Ashton, of Marblehead, in New 
England. Who, being taken & forcibly de- 
tained about 8 Months on board the Pirate Low, 
afterwards made his escape on the Desolate 
Island of Roatan; where he liv'd alone for the 
space of Sixteen Months. With the surprising 
account of his Subsistence and Manner of 
Living there, and of many Deaths from which 
he was Rescued, by the Over-Ruling Providence 
of God; as also the Means of his final Deliver- 
ance & Return home, after almost 3 Years ab- 
sence. Drawn up & Publish'd from his own 
Mouth, by the Rev. Mr. John Barnard, Pastor 
of a Church in Marblehead; With a Sermon on 
that Occasion, from Dan. Ill 17. To which is 
added a Short Account of Nicholas Meritt's 
Escape from the Pirate aforesaid, who was taken 
at the same time. To be sold by Samuel Ger- 



368 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

risk near the Brick Meeting House in Cornhill, 
Boston." 

In the large towns, along with Bibles, Psalters, 
Watts's Hymns, and sermons preached to 
pirates, there were offered for sale from 1744 to 
1751, " The Pilgrim's Progress ", *' The Academy 
of Compliments ", " Laugh and Be Fat ", " A 
History of Pirates ", " Reynard The Fox ", 
" Pamela ", " La Belle Assembly ", " Clarissa ", 
*' Peregrine Pickle ", " Tom Jones ", La Fon- 
taine's " Fables ", and " Robinson Crusoe ", 
besides the Spectator and other London period- 
icals of the day. Books were often purchased 
in cheap covers and rebound to suit the indi- 
vidual taste and purse. Hence the advertise- 
ments of many bookbinders may be found in 
the Colonial newspapers. Also there, in print 
for which a good rate per line has been paid, 
are found numerous advertisements for books 
which have been borrowed but not returned. 
Thus in 1748 and 1749 we read: 

" The she-person who has borrowed Mr. Tho. 
Brown's works from a gentleman she is well ac- 
quainted with, is desired to return them speedily." 

" The person that so ingeniously borrowed 
Sir Isaac Newton's works out of my printing 
office is earnestly desired to return them speed- 
ily, they being none of my property." 

Again, in 1763, some one advertises thus 
ironically : 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 369 

" Lent to some persons who have too much 
modesty to return them unasked, — The first 
volume of Swift's works of a small edition. 
The ninth volume of the Critical Review. One 
volume of Tristram Shandy, and the first part 
of Candid. The owner's arms and name in 
each, who will be much obliged to the bor- 
rowers for the perusal of the above books when 
they have no further use for them." 

Obviously there had occurred in our literary 
history by this time, what has been character- 
ized as an " aesthetical thaw." Before 1760 
no such word as play was to be found in the 
vocabulary of grown New Englanders. When 
they were not working hard on their stony soil, 
they were reading hard in their " stony books 
of doctrine." To spend time on works of the 
imagination was considered an idle and sinful 
waste. But when the moral lyrics of Doctor 
Watts failed to satisfy the growing taste, 
there was a reaching out towards other and 
better books, and Milton, Dryden, Thomson, 
Pope, and Swift began to be admired, while 
stray copies of the Spectator were eagerly ab- 
sorbed by those so lucky as to possess them. 

Robert B. Thomas, publisher of the " Old 
Farmer's Almanack ", offered, in 1797, an as- 
tonishingly varied list of books which might be 
had at his book-shop in Sterling, Massachusetts. 
For poetry there was Goldsmith, Milton, 



370 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Thomson's " Seasons ", and Young 's " Night 
Thoughts", as well as Ovid's "Art of Love", 
and the lyrics of Doctor Watts. In the field of 
romances and novels. Fielding was represented 
by "Tom Jones" and "Joseph Andrews"; 
Smollett by " Roderick Random ", Sterne by 
" The Sentimental Journey ", Miss Burney by 
"Evelina" and "Cecilia", — all classics, even 
to-day. Mrs. Radcliffe's thrilling " Mysteries 
of Udolpho ", Henry Mackenzie's " Man of 
Feeling ", Doctor Johnson's " Rasselas ", the 
highly correct " Sandford and Merton ", " The 
Arabian Nights ", " Robinson Crusoe ", Roche- 
foucault's " Maxims ", and the second part of 
Paine's " Age of Reason " are other readily 
recognized titles in this catholic collection. 
Also here is " The English Hermit: or the Un- 
paralleled Sufferings and Surprising Adven- 
tures of Phihp Quarll, an Englishman: who was 
discovered by Mr. Dorrington, a British Mer- 
chant, upon an uninhabited Island, in the South- 
sea; where he lived about fifty years, without 
any human assistance." This work was ex- 
ceedingly popular in the eighteenth and early 
nineteenth century, being a highly colored and 
not very wholesome variation of Defoe's inimi- 
table masterpiece. 

The ahnanac in which this list of books was 
advertised is quite as interesting to us of to-day 
as are the names of the books which Mr. Thomas 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 371 

thus urged upon his readers. Almanacs date 
back to the very dawn of printing in America. 
For next after a sheet containing " The Free- 
man's Oath ", the first production that came 
from the printing press in this country was 
*' An Almanac calculated for New England, 
by Mr. Pierce ", and printed by Stephen Daye, 
at Cambridge, in 1639. Almost annually there- 
after a similar publication was issued from this 
press; and in 1676 Boston produced its first 
almanac. The " Rhode Island Almanac ", 
which James Franklin published and which 
anticipated much of the wit and wisdom later 
to be found in Benjamin Franklin's famous 
" Poor Richard's Almanac ", dates from 1728. 
Three years earlier, Nathaniel Ames, physician 
and innkeeper of Dedham, Massachusetts, had 
begun to issue his " Astronomical Diary and 
Almanac ", a work which he continued to pub- 
lish until his death in 1764, and which, under 
his management, had acquired an enormous 
popularity throughout New England. Professor 
Tyler declares that Ames's almanac, which, 
from the first, contained in high perfection 
every type of excellence afterward illustrated 
in the almanac of Benjamin Franklin, was in 
most respects better than Franklin's, and was 
" the most pleasing representation we have of a 
form of literature that furnished so much en- 
tertainment to our ancestors, and that pre- 



372 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

serves for us so many characteristic hints of 
their Hfe and thought." 

For the purposes of the present chapter, this 
almanac is chiefly interesting in that it " carried 
into the furthest wildernesses of New England 
some of the best English literature; pronoun- 
cing there, perhaps for the first time, the names 
of Addison, Thomson, Pope, Dryden, Butler, 
Milton; repeating there choice fragments of 
what they had written." 

Perhaps it was by some such roundabout 
route as this that Jonathan Edwards, whom 
we certainly do not readily associate with the 
reading of novels, had his attention called, in 
the latter part of his life, to " Sir Charles Grandi- 
son ", and was so fascinated by the magic of 
Richardson's style that he is said to have ex- 
pressed to his son deep regret that he himself 
had not paid more attention to the manner of 
the messages he had to convey. But Edwards, 
without the aid of Richardson, had the funda- 
mental virtues of a writer: abundant thought 
and the ability to put his meaning clearly and 
forcefully. The sermons with which he searched 
men's souls were all written, and frequently 
" there was such a breathing of distress and 
weeping," as he read them from manuscript, 
" that the preacher was obliged to speak to the 
people and desire silence that he might be 
heard." Sin, Hell, and Eternal Damnation 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 373 

formed the subjects of these discourses. The 
success of their appeal arose very largely from 
the fact that the people at whom they were 
aimed believed in the things of which Edwards 
wrote. Thus the explanation of this preacher's 
power is precisely the same as the explanation 
of the remarkable sales attained by Wiggles- 
worth's Day of Doom. If you happened to 
think it true, you would be greatly impressed by 
being told : * ' God holds you over the pit of hell 
much as one holds a spider or some loathsome 
insect over the fire. . . . You are ten thousand 
times more abominable in his eyes, than the 
most hateful venomous serpent is in ours." * 

To attribute to the Boston of Edwards' era 
the tales of Mother Goose would be exceedingly 
interesting; and many writers have not hesi- 
tated to make this claim, classing Elizabeth 
Vergoose, who once really lived in the leading 
city of New England, with Aesop, Perrault, 
La Fontaine, Anderson, Defoe, and the brothers 
Grimm as a writer of imaginative tales for 
children. All because John Fleet Eliot, great- 
grandson of Thomas Fleet, the Boston printer, 
in 1860 published in the Boston Transcript a 
wholly unsupported statement that these im- 
mortal rhymes had been written by his an- 
cestress, Mrs. Vergoose, basing his claim on the 
fact that Edward A. Crowninshield of Boston 

^ Works of Jonathan Edwards, VII, p. 170. 



374 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

thought he had once seen in the hbrary of the 
Antiquarian Society at Worcester a first edition 
of the " Melodies " put out by Thomas Fleet 
in 1719! Mr. Crowninshield had died when Mr. 
Eliot's article was published, and thorough and 
repeated search of the library has failed to re- 
veal to the eye of any other person this rather 
important piece of evidence. So that there 
appears to be not the slightest real foundation 
for what, we may as well brand at once as a 
highly interesting myth. Those who care to ex- 
amine all the evidence and puncture this fiction 
for themselves are referred to the little volume 
in which William H. Whitmore threshed out the 
subject thoroughly some twenty odd years ago. 
Dismissing entirely the idea that Mother 
Goose was a name which originated in Boston 
or that the melodies proceeded in any measure 
from either the brain or the pen of Elizabeth 
Goose or Vergoose, mother-in-law of Thomas 
Fleet, the Bo.ston printer, Mr. Whitmore shows 
in his book that the great vogue of the " Melo- 
dies " in this country may be clearly traced to 
an edition put out by Munroe and Francis of 
Boston about 1825. Isaiah Thomas, however, 
had previously printed several less well-known 
editions of these " sonnets from the cradle ", 
as he called them, copying his text, in all proba- 
bility, from an edition put out by John Newbery, 
the famous English publisher of story-books 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 375 

for children, about 1760. Newbery's text ap- 
pears to have been a translation from the French 
*' Nursery Tales " of Charles Perrault, which first 
came out in 1695. For its frontispiece, this 
book had a picture of an old woman spinning 
and telling tales to a man, a girl, a little boy, 
and a cat. On a placard is written: " Contes de 
Ma Mere Loye." Mere Oye or Mother Goose 
is thus seen to be a cherished possession of 
French folk-lore ; Thomas Fleet's great-grandson 
would never have dared to claim her for New 
England had Andrew Lang been lurking any- 
where about. ^ 

There was little attempt to lure Puritan 
children to the reading of books by bestowing 
attractive titles ^ on the volumes offered them. 
One advertisement I have seen describes a cer- 
tain work as "in easey verse Very Suitable for 
children, entitled The Prodigal Daughter or 
The Disobedient Lady Reclaimed: adorned 
with curious cuts. Price Sixpence." The versa- 
tile Cotton Mather supplied " Spiritual Milk 
for Boston Babes in Either England: Drawn 

1 See the Oxford (1888) edition of Perrault. 

2 Yet as this book is passing through the press, I have discovered, 
in the Boston Public Library, " The Famous Tommy Thumb Little 
Story-Book," published in 1771 at Marlborough Street, Boston, 
at the back of which, and described as " pretty stories that may be 
sung or told," are nine rhymes usually found in Mother Goose col- 
lections: the verses about the " wondrous wise " man; the rhyme 
concerning three children sliding on ice; Cock Robbin (sic); " When 
I was a Little Boy " ; " O my Kitten " ; " This Pig went to Market " ; 
" The Sow came in with a Saddle "; " Boys and Girls, Come out to 
Play "; and " Little Boy Blue." 



376 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their 
Souls Nourishment." 

It was nearly a century after Mather's time 
before Isaiah Thomas, stretching the truth a 
little, advertised as " books Suitable for Chil- 
dren of all ages": "Tom Jones Abridged", 
" Peregrine Pickle Abridged ", " Vice in Its 
Proper Shape ", *' The Sugar Plumb ", " Bag of 
Nuts Ready Crack'd ", " Jacky Dandy ", and 
the "History of Billy and Polly Friendly". 
At the same time he offered as " Chapman's 
Books for the Edification and Amusement of 
young Men and Women who are not able to 
Purchase those of a Higher Price ", " The Amours 
and Adventures of Two English Gentlemen In 
Italy ", " Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony ", 
and " Laugh And Be Fat." Mrs. Shelton says 
that not long after this, the " book-closet " of 
the Salt Box House increased in wealth and 
variety by the addition of " The Stories of 
Sinbad and Aladdin ", " The History of Miss 
Betsey Thoughtless ", " Theodore; or, the 
Gamester's Progress ", " Charlotte Temple ", 
and " The Coquette; or, the History of Eliza 
Wharton, a Novel Founded on Fact ", — all 
of which lightened the heavier reading of " Ex- 
ercises of the Heart, by the Late Pious and In- 
genious Mrs. Rowe ", " Lockhart's History of 
Scotland ", " Josephus ", and the serious books 
of the day. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 377 

It would thus appear that by the early years 
of the nineteenth century the " aesthetical 
thaw " had reached Connecticut. The day of 
Bryant and Washington Irving approaches. 



378 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER X 

THE OCCASIONAL JOURNEY 

TO go on a journey was a very serious 
matter in old New England days — so 
serious that prayers were wont to be 
offered in church for the traveler's safe return, 
and public thanksgiving made when the trip 
had been successfully accomplished. There 
was, indeed, much more truth than poetry in 
the lines written by Madam Sarah Knight, that 
" fearfull female travailler ", on the window- 
pane of the house in Boston's North End after- 
wards occupied by Doctor Samuel Mather: 

" Through many toils and many frights 
I have returned poor Sarah Knights 
Over great rocks and many stones 
God has preserv'd from fractured bones." 

Sarah Knight's own account ^ of her journey 
is a classic. Born in 1666, she found it necessary, 
when about thirty-eight years old, to make the 
then " perilous journey " to New York, for the 

' " Journey from Boston to New York," 92 pp.: Albany. Little, 
1865. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 379 

sake of adjusting some property interests. The 
time was that of some of the most frightful In- 
dian massacres New England had ever known, 
and to set forth, on horseback, to make this 
difficult trip might well have tried the cour- 
age of a strong man; unusual, indeed, must 
needs be the pluck of the woman who would 
attempt the feat. Sarah Knight did attempt 
it, however, spending most of the time from 
October 2 to December 6, 1704, on the road. 

The first night of her journey she rode until 
very late, in order to " overtake the post." The 
post from Boston to New York went once a 
week in the summer at this period and in the 
winter only once a fortnight. Apparently it 
was on " winter schedule " at the time of the 
intrepid Sarah's journey. At Billings's, a 
tavern twelve miles beyond Dedham, where 
she passed this first night away from home, she 
was greeted by the eldest daughter of her host 
thus: "Law for mee — what in the world 
brings you here at this time a night? I never 
see a woman on the road so DreadfuU late, in 
all the days of my versall life. Who are you? 
Where are you going? . . . T told her she 
treated me very Rudely and I did not think it 
my duty to answer her unmannerly Questions. 
But to gett ridd of them I told her I come there 
to have the Posts company with me to-morrow 
on my Journey &c." 



380 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Nothing about the Journal is more dehcious 
than its vivid descriptions of the various beds 
upon which Sarah Knight rested her weary 
bones in the course of this great adventure. 
This is what she writes after the first night: 

" I pray'd Miss to shew me to where I must 
Lodg. Shee conducted me to a parlour in a 
little back Lento, ^ which was almost filled with 
the bedstead, which was so high that I was 
forced to climb on a chair to gitt up to ye 
wretched bed that lay on it, on which having 
Strecht my tired Limbs, and lay'd my head 
on a Sad-Colour'd pillow, I began to think on 
the transactions of ye past day." 

On another occasion her room was shared, 
as was the country custom of that time (and 
indeed for many years later), by the men who 
had journeyed with her. Again, her sleep was 
interrupted by drunken topers in the room 
next her own, men who " kept calling for tother 
Gill which while they were swallowing, was 
some intermission. But presently like Oyle to 
fire encreased the flame. I set my Candle on a 
chest by the bedside, and setting up fell to my 
old way of composing my Resentments in the 
following manner: 

" I ask thy aid O Potent Rum 
To charm these wrangling Topers Dum 

' Lean-to. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 381 

Thou hast their Giddy Brains possest 
The man confounded with the Beast 
And I, poor I, can get no rest 
Intoxicate them with thy fumes 
O still their Tongues till morning comes. 

And I know not but my wishes took effect 
for the dispute soon ended with tother Dram." 

Bridges across rivers were almost unknown 
in New England of this early date, so that on 
more than one occasion Madam Knight had to 
trust herself to an Indian canoe. Lovers of this 
ticklish craft will appreciate the following de- 
scription of our traveler's sensations: 

" The Cannoo was very small & shallow so 
that when we were in she seemd redy to take 
in water which greatly terrify'd me, and caused 
me to be very circumspect, sitting with my 
hands fast on each side, my eyes stedy, not 
daring so much as to lodge my tongue a hairs 
breadth more on one side of my mouth than 
tother, nor so much as think on Lotts wife, for the 
very thought would have oversett our wherey." 

In later life Madam Knight went herself into 
the business of tavern-keeping; on which ac- 
count her comments on the food served at the 
various ordinaries at which she stopped is of 
particular interest. She says: 

" Landlady told us shee had some mutton 
which shee would broil. In a little time she 
bro't it in but it being pickled and my Guide 



382 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

said it smelt strong of head-sause we left it and 
paid six pence apiece for our dinners which was 
only smell." Again, " Having call'd for some- 
thing to eat the woman bro't in a Twisted thing 
like a cable, but something whiter, laying it on 
the bord, tugg'd for life to bring it into capacity 
to spread; which having with great pains ac- 
complished shee served a dish of Pork and 
Cabage I supose the remains of Dinner. The 
sauce was of deep purple which I tho't was 
boiled in her dye Kettle; the bread was Indian 
and everything on the Table service agreeable 
to these. I being hungry gott a httle down, but 
my stomach was soon cloy'd and what cabage 
I swallowed served me for a Cudd the whole 
day after." 

Pumpkins in every style were offered to our 
traveler, but not being country -born, she had 
no zest for this staple of the " times wherein 
old Pompion was a saint " and so refused the 
" pumpkin sause and pumpkin bred " which 
she everywhere encountered. Nor did she en- 
joy sitting at table with the slaves of her Con- 
necticut hosts. " Into the dish goes the black 
Hoof as freely as the white hand ", she records 
in disgust, her criticism, however, being aimed 
at the color of the slave's fingers rather than at 
the then universal custom of helping oneself by 
dipping with the hand into the common dish. 

The steed to which Madam Knight entrusted 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 383 

herself was undoubtedly a pacer, but whether 
it had the broad back and comfortable seat of 
the Narragansett variety we have no means of 
knowing. Nor can we say with certainty what 
manner of riding-garments she wore, though it is 
altogether probable that she was arrayed in a 
woolen round-gown, perhaps of camlet, made 
with puffed sleeves which came to the elbow 
and were finished with knots of ribbons and 
ruffles. Riding-habits were then never used. 
Over her shoulders she very likely wore a heavy 
woolen short cloak, on her hands long kid gloves 
with a kind of gauntlet, and on her head a 
close " round cap " which did not cover her 
ears. The " horse furniture " to which she 
makes frequent reference in the journal in- 
cluded her side-saddle and the saddle-bag which 
held her traveling wardrobe and her precious 
journal. We of to-day cannot be too grateful 
to her for the care with which she guarded this 
colorful record of an early journey from Boston 
to New York. 

For, while we have a great many interesting 
accounts of late eighteenth and early nineteenth 
century journeys in New England, it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to find anything whatever 
about inns and innkeepers of the seventeenth 
century. We do know, however, that as early 
as 1630 Lynn had the famous " Anchor " Tav- 
ern, which existed for one hundred and seventy 



384 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

years and served as a half-way house between 
Boston and Salem, and that in 1633 ordinary 
keepers in Salem were forbidden to charge more 
than sixpence for a meal. 

The New England inn of these early days 
was an institution, it must be understood, not 
a mere incident of travel and wayfare. Often 
an innkeeper would undertake an ordinary for 
entertaining strangers " at the earnest request 
of the town." Very frequently, as we have seen 
in an earlier chapter, the inn was put close to 
the meeting-house for the express purpose of 
providing a place in which worshippers could 
thaw out after their long journey and partake, 
between services, of the ever-comforting flip. 
A whole book might be written — I have in- 
deed written one myself — on the evolution 
of this type of ordinary, and attendant changes 
in methods of travel from Sarah Knight's day 
to 1822, when the journey from Boston to New 
York was made by stage to Providence and 
by steamer the rest of the way. The fare on the 
coach was then three dollars, and the forty- 
mile journey was accomplished in four hours 
and fifty minutes, thus causing the editor of the 
Providence Journal to write: "If any one wants 
to go faster he may send to Kentucky and 
charter a streak of lightning." 

Providence early became a thriving com- 
mercial center largely by reason of the busi- 




WILLIAMS TAVERN IN MARLBOROUGH, MASS. 
See p. 415. 




A VIEW OF PROVIDENCE, R. I., ABOUT 1824. 

Showing in the centre the " Crown Coffee House " and its stage.s. 

From the diploma of the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 385 

ness enterprise of the famous family of Brown. 
It also profited greatly by the fact that it was 
a natural terminus for stages and packet boats. 
From the popular " Crown Coffee House " of 
Richard Olney a stage-coach set out for Boston 
every Tuesday morning long prior to the Revo- 
lution, and by 1793 stages were leaving Boston 
and Providence on alternate days. The " Old 
Farmer's Almanack " for the first year of the 
nineteenth century announced: 

" PROVIDENCE and NEW-YORK south- 
ern Mail Stage sets off from Israel Hatch's 
coffee-house, corner of Exchange-Lane, State 
Street, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 
at 8 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at New- 
York every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday 
noon; leaves New-York every Tuesday, Thurs- 
day, and Saturday, at 10 o'clock in the morning, 
and arrives in Boston every Friday, Monday 
and Wednesday, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 

*' An extra stage runs every day to Provi- 
dence, from the above office." 

Providence, it will thus be seen, had got its 
good share of the increased business, which 
caused Wansey to remark, in 1794 : " Eight 
years ago the road from Boston to Newhaven, 
a distance of an hundred and seventy miles, 
could scarcely maintain two stages and twelve 
horses; now it maintains twenty stages weekly, 
with upwards of an hundred horses; so much 



386 SOCIAL LIFE IjST 

is travelling encreased in this district." In the 
summer of 1829, there were three hundred and 
twenty-eight stage-coaches a week running be- 
tween Boston and Providence, besides many 
local stages to points nearer the city. 

Of course, sightseers among others were thus 
enabled to make visits to the city. And some 
of them wrote down what they saw. Mrs. 
Anne Royall, the pioneer Virginia publicist,^ 
recorded in 1826: 

" Providence is a very romantic town, lying 
partly on two hills, and partly on a narrow plain, 
about wide enough for two streets. ... It con- 
tains fourteen houses for public worship, a col- 
lege, a jail, a theatre, a market-house, eight 
banks, an alms-house, part of which is a hospi- 
tal, and 12800 inhabitants. . . . Providence is 
mostly built of wood though there are many fine 
brick edifices in it. . . . The streets are wide 
and regular and most of them paved, with hand- 
some sidewalks, planted with trees. It is a very 
flourishing, beautiful town and carries on an 
extensive trade with the East Indies. The town 
of Providence owns six cotton factories, two 
woolen factories, twelve jeweller's shops, where 
jewelry is manufactured for exportation. . . . 
The citizens are mostly men of extensive capi- 
tal. . . . The citizens of Providence are mild, 
unassuming, artless, and the very milk of human 

^ See my " Romantic Days in the Early Republic," p. 252 et seq. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 387 

kindness. They are stout, fine looking men; 
the ladies, particularly, are handsome, and 
many of them highly accomplished. Both sexes 
. . . have a very independent carriage." 

An independent carriage, though not of the 
type Mrs. Royall had in mind, figures promi- 
nently in the one other early account of New 
England travel which has come down to us. 
I mean David Sewall's description of the jour- 
ney he and Tutor Flynt took from Cambridge 
to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in June, 1754, 
by " chair ", as the first open vehicles were 
called. Flynt has been called " New England's 
earliest humorist ", and there seems no reason, 
as one reads Sewall's account of this memorable 
journey, to dispute the characterization. Mr. 
Flynt was eighty, and Sewall one of his pupils 
at Harvard, when: 

" He sent for me to his chamber in the old 
Harvard Hall. Being informed that I was an 
excellent driver of a chair, he wished to know 
if I would wait upon him. ... I replied the 
proposition was to me new and unexpected and 
I wished for a little time to consider of it. He 
replied, ' x\ye, prithee, there is no time for con- 
sideration; I am going next Monday morning.' " 

So on Monday morning go they did, making 
Lynn their first stopping-place. There Mr. 
Flynt had a milk punch, the afternoon being 
warm. By nightfall they reached Rowley, 



388 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

where they were entertained by Reverend 
Jedidiah Jewett, who put them both in one bed, 
the only accommodation he had to offer. 
Young Sewall was admonished by his tutor to 
stay carefully on his own side, and we have his 
word that he did so. 

The next day, Tuesday, at old Hampton, 
they met on the road Parson Cotton, walldng 
on foot with his wife. Mr. Flynt informed him 
** that he intended to have called and taken 
dinner with him, but as he found he was going 
from home he would pass on and dine at the 
public house." Upon which, says Mr. Cotton, 
" We are going dine upon an invitation with 
Dr. Weeks, one of my parishioners; and (Rev.) 
Mr. Gookin and his wife of North Hill are like- 
wise invited to dine there; and I have no doubt 
you will be as welcome as any of us." Which 
invitation Mr. Flynt accepted, having first 
stipulated that Mr. Cotton should hasten on 
and prepare the hostess. 

" After dinner, while Mr. Flynt was enjoying 
his pipe, the wife of Dr. Weeks introduced her 
young child, about a month old, and the twins 
of Parson Gookin's wife, infants of about the 
same age, under some expectation of his bless- 
ing by bestowing something on the mother of 
the twins (as was supposed), although no men- 
tion of that expectation was made in my hear- 
ing; but it produced no effect of the kind." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 389 

We shall hear more of those Gookin twins. 
Mr. Flynt, being a bachelor, was regarded as 
fair game by ambitious mothers. 

That afternoon, young Sewall, unfortunately, 
proved himself not so skilful a driver of a 
" chair " after all; the old gentleman was thrown 
out and slightly bruised when their horse stum- 
bled on a stony road near York. But some 
court plaster and " two or three single bowls of 
lemon punch made pretty sweet " served to re- 
store the equanimity of the travelers and we 
soon find Bachelor Flynt remarking to his 
driver, as a young gentleman whom both knew 
turned into a side road with the girl to whom 
he was paying court: " Aye, prithee, I do not 
understand their motions; but the Scripture 
says ' The way of a man with a maid is very 
mysterious.' " 

At Hampton Falls, on their return journey, 
the travelers planned to dine with the Reverend 
Josiah Whipple. " But it so happened the din- 
ner was over, and Mr. Whipple had gone out 
to visit a parishioner, but Madam Whipple was 
at home and very sociable and pleasant and 
immediately had the table laid, and a loin of 
roasted veal, that was in a manner whole, placed 
on it, upon which we made an agreeable meal. 

" After dinner Mr. Flynt was accommodated 
with a pipe; and while enjoying it Mrs. Whipple 
accosted him thus: ' Mr. Gookin, the worthy 



390 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

clergyman of North Hill, has but a small parish, 
and a small salary, but a considerable family 
and his wife has lately had twins.' 

Aye, that's no fault of mine,' says Mr. 
Flynt. 

Very true, sir, but so it is.' And as he was a 
bachelor and a gentleman of handsome property, 
she desired he would give her something for Mr. 
Gookin; and she would be the bearer of it, and 
faithfully deliver it to him. To which he re- 
plied : ' I don't know that we bachelors are under 
an obligation to maintain other folks' children.' 
To this she assented; but it was an act of 
charity she now requested for a worthy person, 
and from him who was a gentleman of opulence ; 
and who, she hoped, would now not neglect be- 
stowing it. * Madam, I am from home on a jour- 
ney, and it is an unreasonable time.' She was 
very sensible of this; but a gentleman of his 
property did not usually travel without more 
money than was necessary to pay the immediate 
expenses of the journey, and she hoped he 
could spare something on this occasion. After 
some pause he took from his pocket a silver 
dollar and gave her, saying it was the only 
Whole Dollar he had about him. Upon which 
Mrs. Whipple thanked him and engaged she 
would faithfully soon deliver it to Mr. Gookin; 
adding it was but a short time to Commencement 
. . . and she hoped this was but an earnest 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 391 

of a larger donation. . . . Father Flynt re- 
plied, ' Insatiable woman, I am almost sorry I 
have given you anything.' " 

He soon forgot how annoying Mrs. Whipple 
had been, however, in the pleasure of meeting 
again the wife of Reverend Nathaniel Rogers 
of Ipswich, whom he had known at Cambridge 
as President Leverett's daughter. His greeting 
to this lady was: '* Madam, I must buss you; " 
and he gave her a hearty kiss. Next morning 
there was tea and toast for breakfast and when 
Mrs. Rogers asked how he would have his tea, 
the witty tutor replied that he liked it strong, 
" strong of the tea, strong of the sugar, and 
strong of the cream." 

To realize how great an adventure this was in 
which David Sewall and Tutor Flynt had been 
engaged, it is necessary to recall that carriages 
were then almost as novel a means of transporta- 
tion as air-ships are now. Jonathan Wardell 
set up the first hackney-coach in Boston in 1712, 
and in the following year we read of Margaret 
Sewall, Stephen Sewall's daughter, making a 
very diflScult journey in a calash from " beyond 
Lyn to Mistick." In 1726 John Lucas of Bos- 
ton is found advertising the use of a coach and 
three able horses to take people to any part of 
the country passable for a coach, at the common 
price of hackney saddle-horses. This charge 
was for the animals; in addition there was a 



392 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

fee of twenty-five shillings per week for the 
driver, the cost of " coach and harnish " being 
reckoned " as one horse." " Harnish " at this 
time consisted chiefly of ropes and was a some- 
what uncertain commodity. 

Seven years after Tutor Flynt's journey, a 
" large stage chair " or two-horse curricle began 
to run from Boston to Portsmouth and back 
each week. The man in charge of this enter- 
prise was Benjamin Stavers, and his line termi- 
nated at the Earl of Halifax Inn in Portsmouth, 
kept by his brother, John Stavers. Ten years 
later still, in December, 1771, we find Benjamin 
Hart advertising that " he has left riding the 
single horse post between Boston and Ports- 
mouth and now drives the post stage lately im- 
proved by John Noble. He sets out from Boston 
every Friday morning and from Portsmouth on 
Tuesday morning following." 

Systematic staging between Boston and Ports- 
mouth appears to have begun about 1796, the 
pioneer on this route being Benjamin Hale of 
Newburyport, as Seth Paine of Portland was on 
the lines further east. Robert S. Rantoul, who 
has written a delightful paper on " Old Modes 
of Travel in New England ",^ sketches in fasci- 
nating fashion the careers of many old drivers 
on these stages. Very readably, too, he hints 
at the experiences they and their passengers 

* Essex Institute Historical Collections, Vol. XI, p. 1. 




"THE EARL OF HALIFAX" INN, PORTSMOUTH, N. H., KEPT BY JOHN 
STAYERS IN 1761. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 393 

encountered as, all winter long, in storm or by- 
starlight, they left Boston for the east at jBve 
o'clock in the morning: the smoking corn -cake 
for breakfast, the chill, crisp morning air, lan- 
terns flitting eerily through the ample stable, 
sleepy horse-boys shivering about the door- 
yard, the sharp crack of the whip, the scramble 
for places in the dark, the long dull ride before 
sun-up, and the gradual thawing out of the 
passengers as the side-lights flickered out and 
the orb of day prevailed. The first regular 
stage between Boston and Hartford, and the 
beginning of systematic communication be- 
tween Boston and New York, dates from 1783, 
the impresario of this great enterprise being 
Captain Levi Pease, an Enfield, Connecticut, 
man whose home was later in Shrewsbury, 
Massachusetts. Pease had a great deal of grit 
but no money; his friend, Reuben Sykes, who 
had previously driven a stage with him from 
Somers to Hartford, — a distance of twenty 
miles, — supplied the necessary capital for their 
venture. On October 20, 1783, therefore, at six 
o'clock in the morning. Pease started from 
Boston, as did Sykes from Hartford, in " two 
convenient wagons." Each made the allotted 
trip in four days, the fare being ten dollars 
each way. Josiah Quincy has left us a vivid 
account of a journey in one of their " con- 
venient wagons." 



394 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" One pair of horses carried the stage eighteen 
miles. We generally reached our resting-place 
for the night, if no accident intervened, at ten 
o'clock and after a frugal supper went to bed 
with the notice that we should be called at 
three the next morning, which generally proved 
to be half past two. Then, whether it snowed 
or rained, the traveller must rise and make 
ready by the help of a horn lantern and a 
farthing candle and proceed on his way over 
bad roads. . . . Thus we travelled, eighteen 
miles a stage, sometimes obliged to get out and 
help the coachman lift the coach out of a quag- 
mire or rut, and arrived at New York after a 
week's hard travelling, wondering at the ease 
as well as the expedition of our journey." 

It were, however, a pity to progress too rap- 
idly in our narrative. The stage and the steam- 
boat came, of course; but full many an interest- 
ing journey on horseback lay between. For in- 
stance, in the diary of William Gregory, a young 
Scotchman, who traveled to Boston from New 
Haven in 1771 to transact some business con- 
nected with a " general store " which he kept in 
the latter town, we have a delightfully lively ac- 
count of the adventures which often befell a 
personable young man while " on the road." 
Wallingford, Hartford, Springfield, and Palmer 
were early stages of this journey, which took 
place in the golden days of late September. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 395 

From Palmer our traveler '* sett off by seven 
o'clock rid as fair far as Brookfield and break- 
fasted and stayed until my two widows one 
married woman and two young girls came up. 
Kept alongside of them for fourteen miles, but 
finding they would only be a bill of costs and 
no advantage I dropped them. I jogged on the 
road solitary enough. This is a very mountain- 
ous country and bad roads. Dined at Spencer, 
at Whitmore's. After I refreshed my horse in 
the pasture I pursued my way towards Worces- 
ter, along with two Scotch-Irishmen, who were 
glad to hear somebody speak broad. They 
left me after riding the three miles and I came 
up with the five women once more at Worces- 
ter. I put up at one Howard's. The coach 
proceeded. This is a very handsome place and 
county town, and court now sits so that the 
Tavern is quite full. ... I passed for a rela- 
tive of old Parson MacGregor's of London- 
derry, New England, which caused a little 
more respect paid me. I said he was my grand 
uncle and passed well so. I slept with a man 
who came to be w^th me and got up long be- 
fore me, so that I knew not what he was." 

Having paid two shillings tenpence for this 
accommodation, young Gregory pushed on to 
Shrewsbury, where he " baited horse and self 
at the Sign of the Lamb," and then traveled 
to Marlboro, where he dined at noon; thence 



396 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

to Sudbury, where he " oated Dick ", and then 
" stretched along towards Watertown within 
ten miles of Boston, and put up at my good 
friend's house, Ben. Learnard, who is a widower 
with a fine daughter." 

It is interesting to note, in this early account 
of a *' business trip," the traveler's frank de- 
light in the company of women — so long as 
they cost him nothing. Often he " spends 
the evening with several agreeable ladies at a 
tavern ", but defers his supper-hour until they 
have gone to bed! 

Mr. Gregory's experiences while in Boston 
are very entertaining. Having secured private 
lodgings " at one Mr. Coburn's opposite the 
Bristol Coffee House, which suited me vastly 
better than a tavern " (being cheaper), he 
sallies forth and makes the acquaintance of 
James McMaster, who appears to be in his own 
line of trade but of whom he soon wearies by 
reason of the fact that McMaster "brags pro- 
digiously and tells of the thousands of pounds 
he sells of goods." Still, McMaster being a 
Scotchman, the stranger cleaves to him in spite 
of his boasting. Of September 22 we read : 

'* This day being Sunday, I proposed going 
to some place of worship ... I went to the 
new Boston Church along with J. McMaster 
and heard Mr. Howard. In the afternoon 
I went to the New Stone Chapel, and we had 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 397 

the sweetest music I ever heard, with a sermon 
from Revelations. This church is very hand- 
some and well painted and carved in the inside; 
the outside making no brilliant appearance. 
Before we went into church we caused our 
legs to carry us up to Beacon Hill, the highest 
spot on all the island, where we had a charm- 
ing view of the town, harbor and shipping, 
the place taking its name from their making 
a light here upon any emergency and alarm- 
ing the country on the approach of danger. . . . 
After church I proceeded home with J. McMas- 
ter and drank punch till the going down of the 
sun, when we salhed forth into the street, and 
then proposed going to see Captain Service. 
... I was introduced to him and began to 
count kindred, but could not make it out, 
he nor I knowing but little of relations. . . . 
Half after nine o'clock I got up and bid good 
night, but instead of going home I found my- 
self at the opposite end of the town, two miles 
from my lodgings. I tacked about and after 
running through the Lord knows how many 
crooked streets, I arrived in King street to my 
great joy. I smoked a pipe, jawed a little and 
went to bed." 

Inexpensive diversion, exactly to the taste 
of this thrifty young tradesman, was provided 
a couple of days later by " the ordination of 
Mr. Bacon and installment of Mr. Hunt, both 



398 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

into church. There was a great crowd of 
spectators, estimated to be five hundred. My 
landlord, Mr. Coburn, introduced me into 
a pew with twelve ladies, four of whom were 
married women, the other eight — good God! 
how can I express it — were such divine crea- 
tures that instead of attending to the du- 
ties of the solemnity I was all wonder and ad- 
miration. I am o'er happy this afternoon, 
think I am completely paid my trouble and 
expenses in coming here. * Don Pedro,' my 
landlord, said when we came home, ' Gregory, 
you was as happy dog as any in Boston this 
afternoon. You had eight of the handsomest 
ladies all around you as Boston affords and 
ladies of the first rank, two of which,' added 
he, ' are the greatest toasts in the place, — 
Miss Gray and Miss Greenlees, the adorable.' 
Drank tea at home this afternoon, took a walk 
with Mr. McMasters, went into a tavern and 
spent the price of a bowl of punch, came home 
at nine o'clock. McNaught and I played the 
violin. We were very merry. Eat my sup- 
per, smoked my pipe and took myself to the 
Land of Nod." 

Two days later our traveler set out for home, 
" taking the route out of the south end of 
the town by Liberty Tree, and then by Old 
Fort; from that I jogged on to Roxbury. Pass- 
ing through that town I pursued my way as 



t 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 399 

far as Dedham. Then I made a stop and oated 
Dick. From thence I made my way along 
and arrived at Walpole just at dark, and I 
put up at one Mr. Robins', just nineteen and 
a half miles from Boston, as far as I wanted 
to ride to divide the way between Boston and 
Providence. Here was two fine handsome girls." 

Mann's, at Wrentham, was the next stop, 
and there he had breakfast, having journeyed 
thither early from Walpole. " At a tavern 
about nine miles from Providence bated Billy 
and Dick and then proceeded and came to 
Patuxet, a place where there is a great fall 
of water and many mills. Here is an excessive 
high bridge, and not quite finished, which 
renders it very dangerous to pass. At this 
place I fell in company with a young lady on 
horse-back bound on my way, so that I came 
along the last four miles very merry ly. I 
arrived at Providence half after twelve o'clock 
noon." 

There being talk of a dance in Providence 
on Monday, young Gregory decides to stay 
over in that town for a day or two. On Sunday 
he visits the college, which he pronounces " as 
handsome a piece of building as any in America", 
and on Monday at seven in the evening pre- 
sents himself at " the assembly-room, which 
is a very handsome one. The ladies and gentle- 
men drew figures and my figure was No. 1. 



400 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

It happened to be the finest lady in the room, 
which was Miss Polly Bowen, an excellent 
dancer and an excessive sensible girl, and agree- 
able with all. We were happy enough this 
night; broke up the dance at one o'clock, saw 
my partner home, came home, eat something 
with some drink and went to bed." On the 
next day the young fellows who had been at 
the dance paid visits to the ladies they had 
met there, but early Wednesday morning 
Gregory and his fellow-lodgers were aroused 
with: "Turn out, you lazy dogs. The wind 
is fair and it is time to be agoing." For now 
his route was by water to Newport, — a four 
hours' sail, for which the little company of 
fifteen prepared by " laying in good stores — 
roast beef, wine, biscuit, cherry rum gamon 
&c. Also a bushel of as good oysters as ever I 
saw we bought for a pistareen." One is not 
surprised, after reading of these supplies, to 
learn that friend Gregory was " plaguey sick 
next morning." 

At Westerly, his next lodging-place, our 
traveler slept " in Mr. Whitefield's bed ", though 
not very restfully. His host here was a Mr. 
Thornton, with whom and his wife the Scotch- 
man piously talked religion. " They told me 
Mr. Whitefield always stayed at their house 
when he came that way, that he had con- 
verted a vast many people thereabouts, and 



i 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 401 

that I should sleep in the same bed tonight 
— they having taken a liking to me by the 
grave deportment I put on, which in reality 
was caused by my being tired and worn out. 
At last sleep catched such a fast hold on me 
that I fell off my chair on the floor. Then 
says I, ' I must actually go to bed.' And 
after bidding a good night with gladness to 
get off, I slept in Mr. Whitefield's bed as they 
called it, according to promise but was inter- 
rupted by son Johnny coming in from a husking 
frolic. He entered my room and came and 
drew his hand across my face which awakened 
me. I immediately bawled out, thinking that 
old Whitefield had come from New York ^ that 
night to disturb me on account of my pre- 
tended sanctity with the old folks! " 

From Westerly to Stonington the way was so 
rough that Gregory rested his horse and him- 
self " walking and riding by spells." Thus he 
made his way to New London, which he de- 
scribes as having " a pretty good town house 
with a very homely old church and meeting 
house. The latter is situated on top of the hill 
about half a mile from the town." To the 
" homely old church " our young friend repaired 
the next morning and, Presbyterian though he 
was, " passed very well having all the prayers 

1 Whitefield had died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, about a 
year before this, and had there been buried, too, — not in New 
York. 



402 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

by heart so that I could amen as well as any of 
them. Came home, drank toddy and eat a 
hearty dinner. Then brother Frenchman [a 
chance companion] and self steered for the 
meeting house in the afternoon. After a very 
tedious walk we gained the holy place and were 
invited into a pew by the door flying open. A 
young man prayed and preached but how he per- 
formed I cannot say, for no sooner was I seated 
than I slept and was in the land of forgetf ulness 
about an hour. . . . When honest Frenchman 
gave me a jog I was quite surprised to find my- 
self in meeting, thinking I had been at my lodg- 
ings all the while." 

Actual suffering now befell the sturdy William 
by reason of the fact that he had no money 
smaller than a " half Johannes ", and in neither 
" Lime, a small place upon the mouth of the 
Connecticut River", nor in " Seabrook, on the 
opposite bank ", could they break so large a coin. 
Killingsworth, Guilford, and Brandford were his 
three remaining stops, after making which he 
arrived once more in his home town, from which 
he had set forth three weeks before. " New 
Haven in my eyes makes as good a figure as 
any," he writes complacently as his journey 
closes. 

Another interesting account of a journey in 
New England ^ is that of Robert Gilmor, a young 

1 Manuscript owned by the Boston Public Library. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 403 

gentleman of Baltimore, who, in 1797, — being 
then twenty-three, — came north to travel 
and to make sketches of places which appealed 
to him as worthy of preservation in the pages of 
his diary. The tavern at which Mr. Gilmor 
put up in New York was the Tontine, " in the 
coffee room of which the merchants & indeed 
every body almost assemble at night and noon to 
hear what is going, and see each other." The 
route he chose, in making his way to Boston, was 
by water via Hell Gate and the Sound. Most 
of the passengers were seasick, but Mr. Gilmor 
" had a good appetite, ate heartily and could 
not help smiling to see many turn their languish- 
ing eyes towards my plate as if they wished to 
follow my example, and yet the sight seemed to 
disgust them, making their sickness still more 
revolting. 

" Early in the night," the diary continues, 
" we got sight of the Lighthouse which stands 
upon the island of Coanicut, and at 1 o'Clock in 
the morning we landed by moonlight on the 
wharf at New Port quite rejoiced at our favor- 
able voyage and glad to have another oppor- 
tunity to sleep in clean beds." 

In a building " over the market-place " at 
Newport a small theatrical company had for 
some time been performing, and consequently 
this visitor from the South was able to enjoy a 
play that evening. And, at the request of Mrs. 



404 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Caton of Baltimore, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Har- 
wood, who chanced to be in Newport, " took a 
part and astonished the audience with their 
great theatrical powers. Cooper played Romeo 
and Harwood shone in the farce of ' Ways and 
Means,' in which he played Sir David Dundee. 

" The next day we hired a chaise and rode over 
the Beaches & The surf broke very handsomely, 
and we stopped to look at the grandeur of the 
scene. . . . From the beaches we took a circuit 
round and came into New Port on the other side 
of the Island. The ride was delightful and lay 
through the richest and best cultivated country 
I ever saw. — The fences were made of stone 
which had been cleared off the land and inter- 
sected each other so frequently, that when we 
regarded a hillside from an opposite one, it ap- 
peared like a richly coloured map. 

" Having hired a stage to take us on to Provi- 
dence, five of us set off early next morning, and 
got to Providence to dinner; after which we 
walked over the Town and along the wharves, 
by which lay many vessels. Tho' this place & 
Newport are small, there are some of the richest 
& most extensive merchants in the United States 
residing in them, particularly Providence. Here 
lives Mr. John Brown, a man who has ships in 
all quarters of the globe, who lives like a prince, 
and contributes to the support of a number of 
industrious citizens. There are a number of 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 405 

elegant houses in Providence, chiefly built of 
wood and painted in a neat, handsome manner. 
We left Providence the succeeding morning, and 
after passing through Patucket, Attleborough, 
Dedham & Roxbury, arrived at Boston about 
4 in the evening. 

*' The day was charming and when we 
entered the town it had an elegant appearance. 
We passed a number of carriages, in which were 
young ladies going to the country, and we were 
struck with the Beauty that seemed to prevail 
in New England. Hardly one lady we saw 
could be called ugly. ... As my father had 
recommended me to board with Mrs. Archi- 
bald ^ during my stay here (he having been 
much pleased with her house last year when 
he & my sister staid there) I directed the 
driver to set me down there, & luckily a room 
with 2 beds happened to be unoccupied, when 
Mr. S. & myself took possession of it. . . . 
Before dark we had visited the Mall, The Capi- 
tol, Beacon hill, & almost half the town. 

" Boston is a handsome town, filled with some 
well built houses in general, and some very superb 
ones, though mostly of wood. The streets are 
however bad; being narrow, wretchedly paved 
and no side way of brick for foot passengers ; my 
feet were quite sore with traversing the round 

* Mrs. Archibald kept a select boarding-house in Bowdoin 
Square. 



406 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

stones. . . . On Friday the 10th 1 hired a hack 
(of which there are a great plenty, and some 
very handsome, both coaches and chariots) 
and rode to Cambridge, a dehghtful village 
about 4 miles from town, to deliver my letter 
for Mr. Craigie who has a very handsome resi- 
dence there, and was the place which General 
Washington chose for his head quarters, last 
war, when the army lay in the neighbourhood. 

" Cambridge is principally the seat of the 
University of that name, and of gentlemen's 
country houses. It is divided from Boston by 
a long causeway & bridge of 13^ miles in length 
which it is extremely tiresome to cross from its 
length. At night it is lighted up by about 80 
lamps and looks very brilliant from the Mall. 

*' At Night we went to the play and were 
tolerably amused but better pleased with the 
inside of the Theatre ^ than anything else. The 
Galleries look very light having no pillars to 
support them, but appear suspended in the air. 
I think this Theatre much larger & handsomer 
than the one in Philadelphia. There is another 
here built of brick in a very superb manner, but 
it is a winter one. 

" Saturday morning Sherlock & I hired a gig & 
made a circuit of about 10 miles into the country. 
. . . After dinner ... we passed over Charles- 

1 The theatre visited by Mr. Gilmor was that on Federal Street. 
The other to which he has reference was the Haymarket. See my 
" Romance of the American Theatre." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 407 

ton [Charlestown] bridge into the little town 
of that name, visited Bunker's hill and made 
many grave reflections about the Monument 
of General Warren erected there. The next day 
being Sunday, we went to the Protestant Church 
in this city and heard a sermon which did not 
come up to my ideas as a good one. We were 
pleased with the manner in which Dr. Parker 
read prayers, and were in hopes he would have 
preached, but we were disappointed by his as- 
sistant rising in his stead." The church here 
referred to appears to have been the first Trinity 
Church, which stood on the corner of Summer 
and Hawley Streets. 

*' The weather here," continues the manu- 
script, " is very uncertain, in the middle of some 
days the heat is intense, and towards evening 
it becomes cool enough to change the clothes of 
the morning; 'Tis now the 14th of August and 
were I in Baltimore I should call the month 
November for it is the most unseasonable 
weather I ever saw. The wind from the North 
West whistles down the streets, while my dress 
is no avail against the chilliness of the blast. 
The people here don't seem to mind it, nor do 
they, I believe, feel any bad effects from such 
changes; they call it charming pleasant weather, 
rise at five in the morning to plunge into the cold 
bath." 

Another visit to the theatre, a dinner at the 



408 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Craigies, and a dinner at Faneuil Hall in honor 
of President Adams were the diversions of Mr. 
Gilmor during the next few days. 

" About 306 people sat down to this dinner 
[at Faneuil Hall] and were not the least crowded. 
The hall was decorated in a very handsome man- 
ner and enriched by some tapestry of the Gobelin 
manufacture which belonged I believe to the late 
Duke of Orleans. It was very superb, and 
contributed not a little to the elegance of the 
scene. The tables were furnished with every 
thing that one could wish for the season, with 
all kinds of liquors, and a company could not 
be found better disposed to enjoy the festival. 

" The company broke up early and went to 
the Theatre; where the President also came. — 
A Stage box was fitted up with American flags 
for his reception & when he entered it Continued 
peals of applause burst from every quarter of 
the house. He bowed & smiled. During the 
performance he seemed very much diverted and 
stood a tedious play out very well. 

" On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Hay (a fellow 
boarder) & I took our seats in the Salem Stage 
and at Dark arrived at Salem. We had time 
to visit several places in this town, particularly 
the wharves, where we saw a number of fine 
vessels. This place carries on an extensive 
commerce & had lately sent out more East India- 
men than all the rest of the United States to- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 409 

gether. The principal merchant here, Mr. Derby, 
has just built a most superb house, more hke a 
palace than the dwelling of an American mer- 
chant. 

" In our way to Salem we passed through a 
number of pretty little villages one of which, 
Lynn, is scarcely inhabited by any but shoe- 
makers.^ This little town supplies even the 
Southern States with women's shoes for expor- 
tation. The women work also and we scarcely 
passed a house where the trade was not carried 
on. A woman can make four pairs a day & a 
man has been mentioned to me who could make 
double that quantity. 

" We left Salem about 7 the next morning 
in the Portsmouth Stage. ... As there was not 
room for us all, and I did not choose to be left 
behind I agreed with M. Hay to ride on the 
coachman's box with him alternately for 25 
miles, when one of the passengers left us. I did 
not expect to find the seat so agreeable but after 
a little I preferred it to an inside one. After 
riding 45 miles through one of the pleasantest 
countries in the State, we got to Portsmouth in 
the evening. ... A Mr. Boyd hearing I had 
come along with M. Hay politely invited me to 
dine with him on Sunday & to join a party on 
Saturday evening that were going to Piscataqua 

1 In earlier days shoes were cut and fitted by an itinerant shoe- 
maker — after which they were finished in the home. 



410 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

bridge, which is the only one of the kind in 
America and a surprizing work. Its length is 
about 2200 feet, including a small island which 
it rests upon in the middle of the river. . . . 
Wliile the company were viewing the work I 
ran about half a mile to the only place where I 
could get a tolerable view for a picture. Then 
seated on a rock I made the sketch at the end 
of this book, which part I allotted for designs 
of such objects as struck me during my tour 
and which could be comprehended in a slight 
sketch. . . . At 4 o'Clock on Monday afternoon 
I got into the Stage and returned to Boston 
by way of Exeter & Haverhill. 

"It is something remarkable that the people 
of New England in general have adopted a 
number of words in common conversation & 
which they interlard their discourse continually, 
that are not used in the same sense by the other 
part of America. At Portsmouth in New Hamp- 
shire particularly I remembered the following. 
If I observed such a thing was handsome, they 
would answer quite handsome. If I asked the 
way or an opinion, the answer always was pre- 
ceded by / guess, so & so. . . . 

" On Friday at 10 o'Clock I ... set out in 
the stage for New York. We slept the first 
night at Worcester and got to Hartford on 
Saturday night after a very disagreeable ride 
in point of weather. . . . The towns through 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 411 

which we have passed in Connecticut are in 
general very pretty; Hartford is among the 
handsomest as it is the Capital as well as the 
largest town in the State. New Haven is nearly 
the same size as Hartford but built in a much 
handsomer manner. Yale College (the prin- 
cipal institution of the kind in the State & per- 
haps in iVmerica) is placed in this town. 

" On Tuesday about noon we drove into New 
York and I immediately went to my former 
lodging, the Tontine Coffee House." 

Because this journey belonged chronologically 
to the late nineties of the eighteenth century, 
the stage in which Mr. Gilmor traveled was very 
likely of the type described by Thomas Twining, 
a young Englishman, who visited the United 
States in 1795. This was " a long car with 
four benches. Three of these in the interior 
held nine passengers. A tenth passenger was 
seated by the side of the driver on the front 
bench. A light roof was supported by eight 
slender pillars four on each side. Three large 
leather curtains suspended to the roof, one at 
each side and the tliird behind, were rolled up 
or lowered at the pleasure of the passengers. 
There was no place nor space for luggage, each 
person being expected to stow his things as he 
could under his seat or legs. The entrance was 
in front over the driver's bench. Of course the 
three passengers on the back seat were obliged to 



412 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

crawl across all the other benches to get to their 
places. There were no backs to the benches to 
support and relieve us during a rough and fatigu- 
ing journey over a new and ill-made road." 

Not until twenty years later, when the Con- 
cord coach (so called because it was first built 
in Concord, New Hampshire) came into use, 
was there anything like comfort to be had while 
on the road. Yet the temperament of the trav- 
eler then as now had, of course, a great deal to 
do with the amount of enjoyment derived from 
a journey. Because I have quoted Twining, 
who had nothing good to say for the stage-coach, 
it seems only fair to add that John Mellish, who 
made the journey in 180G from Boston to New 
York by mail stage, has left it on record that he 
derived a good deal of pleasure from the ex- 
perience. This in spite of the fact that he was 
called to take his place at two o'clock in the 
morning ! 

The social opportunities of stage-coach travel 
have been appreciatively depicted by many 
sympathetic writers, — the ruddy, genial driver, 
who received you into his care with paternal 
interest, the opportunity which the long drive 
afforded for friendship, flirtation, and political 
discussion, and the family histories which be- 
came known as the stage jolted along the hilly 
roads. One thing which contributed increas- 
ingly, as the nineteenth century advanced, 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 413 

to the pleasure of stage-journeying in New 
England was that the inns, which in Sarah 
Knight's day had been wretched, were now 
almost all of excellent character. Improvement 
in the means of transportation had made it 
possible for the landlords to obtain adequate 
supplies; and the will to serve the public well 
had long been theirs. For inn-keeping was re- 
garded as a highly honorable profession. 

The excellent landlords at the Wayside Inn 
in Sudbury, Massachusetts, felt themselves to 
be gentlemen and were. Well might it be 
written of Lyman Howe, the landlord here in 
Longfellow's time: 

" Proud was he of his name and race, 
Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh 
And in the parlor, full in view, 
His coat-of-arms, well-framed and glazed, 
Upon the wall in colors blazed; 
He beareth gules upon his shield, 
A chevron argent in the field, 
With three wolves' heads, and for the crest 
A Wyvern part-per-pale addressed 
Upon a helmet barr'd; below 
The scroll reads, ' By the name of Howe.' " 

Lyman Howe's pride in his birth and in his 
profession recalls President Dwight's oft-quoted 
praise of innkeepers. " Your countrymen [the 
English] often laugh," writes Dwight, " at the 
fact that inns in New England are kept by 



414 SOCIAL LIFE IIST 

persons whose titles indicate them to be men of 
some consequence. An innkeeper in Great Brit- 
ain, if I have not been misinformed, has usually 
no other respectability in the eye of his country- 
men, beside what he derives from his property, 
his civil manners, and his exact attention to 
the wishes of his guests. The fact is otherwise 
in New England. Our ancestors considered 
an inn as a place where corruption would 
naturally arise and might easily spread; as a 
place where travelers must trust themselves, 
their horses, baggage and money, where women, 
as well as men, must at times lodge, might need 
humane and delicate oflBces, and might be sub- 
jected to disagreeable exposures. To provide 
for safety and comfort and against danger and 
mischief, in all these cases, they took particular 
pains in their laws and administrations to pre- 
vent inns from being kept by vicious, unprinci- 
pled, worthless men. Every innkeeper in Con- 
necticut must be recommended by the selectmen 
and civil authority, constables and grand jurors 
of the town, in which he resides; and then 
licensed at the discretion of the court of common 
pleas. Substantially in the same manner is 
the business regulated in Massachusetts and 
New Hampshire. In consequence of this sys- 
tem, men of no small personal respectability 
have ever kept inns in this country. Here the 
contempt, with which Englishmen regard this 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 415 

subject, is not experienced and is unknown. . . . 
A great part of the New England innkeepers 
and their famihes treat a decent stranger, who 
behaves civilly to them, in such a manner as 
to show him plainly that they feel an interest 
in his happiness; and, if he is sick or unhappy, 
will cheerfully contribute everything in their 
power to his relief." 

In illustration of this last assertion. Doctor 
D wight cites the experience of the Duke de la 
Rochefoucault, who was over here in 1795 and 
was taken ill at the house kept by Captain 
Williams in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The 
duke had been greatly agitated when he found 
himself in this plight among people who had 
never seen him before. *' But fortunately," 
he writes, " the family in whose house I had 
stopped were the best people in the world. Both 
men and women took as much care of me as if 
I had been their own child. ... I cannot 
bestow too much praise on their kindness. Be- 
ing a stranger, utterly unacquainted with them, 
sick and appearing in the garb of mediocrity 
bordering on indigence, I possessed not the least 
claim on their hospitality, but such as their own 
kindness and humanity could suggest; and yet, 
during the five days I continued in their house, 
they neglected their own business to nurse me 
with the tenderest care and with unwearied 
solicitude. They heightened still more the 



416 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

generosity of their conduct, by making up their 
account in a manner so extremely reasonable 
that three times the amount would not have 
been too much for the trouble I had caused 
them. May this respectable family ever enjoy 
the blessings they so well deserve! " 

The " occasional journey ", it is thus clear, 
had been robbed of much of its terror during 
the century which stretched between Sarah 
Knight's journey and that of this young French 
nobleman. For nearly a half-century more, 
too, the inns became constantly better. Then, 
when they were almost perfect in many ways, 
they were forced, by the passing of the stage- 
coach, to close their doors for what looked as if 
it would be all time. And yet to-day many of 
the best of them are doing a more thriving 
business than ever they did! For though the 
age of the stage-coach has passed, that of the 
motor-car has come in its place. And journeys 
in these craft are constant, — instead of " occa- 
sional." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 417 



CHAPTER XI 

SINGING SCHOOLS AND KINDRED COUNTRY 
DIVERSIONS 

MOST of the recreations of country life 
came in winter, when the long evening 
after an unhurried day afforded ample 
leisure for a variety of social intercourse. Thus, 
in addition to quilting parties (for women only) 
and fishing through the ice (for men only), 
there were husking-bees and spelling-bees, 
sleigh rides and skating, all of which offered 
opportunity for the circulation of flip and 
roasted apples, mince pies and cider, as well as 
many other goodies calculated to stir the genial 
current of the country soul. Balls there were, 
too, by the middle of the eighteenth century, 
in many of the old-fashioned taverns. At one 
of these, given at Red Horse Tavern about 1750, 
Jerusha Howe, " the belle of Sudbury " and 
the only daughter of Landlord Adam Howe, 
served wine and pound cake which she had 
made with her own hands. For many years the 
little, pale-blue satin slippers, with satin ribbons 
plaited around the edges, which Jerusha wore 



418 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

on this occasion were preserved in the old 
hostelry, together with certain pretty gowns 
which once formed part of the beautiful maid- 
en's wardrobe. Jerusha had a spinet, too, — the 
first one owned in Sudbury, — upon which she 
often made music for her friends and for her 
father's favored guests. 

But not for the singing-school. That came 
later, for one thing; and, for another, it was a 
very serious enterprise. The primary purpose 
of the singing-school was to train the members 
of the meeting-house choir to a more appreci- 
ative rendering of the psalms and hymns of 
worship. But of course love and laughter crept 
into its solemnities. How could it be other- 
wise when most of the singers were at the mating 
age.'* , That Anna Sophia Parkman, for instance, 
found singing-school a glorious occasion, we 
quite understand as we read in her diary: 
"January 20, 1778: ... go to Singing School 
at evening, Mr. E. B. here and spent the evening, 
he is just come home from College." Every 
day for a week, after that, there is joyous 
mention of singing-school in the diary, Anna 
Sophia always being escorted thither by Elijah 
Brigham, whom she afterwards married. 

Nothing of which we read in the annals of old 
New England is quainter than the singing- 
school, held in the country schoolhouse, with 
rows of tallow candles planted along the desks. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 419 

and a loud-voiced master pitching the tunes. 
A highly entertaining sketch of the singing- 
school at Oxford, Massachusetts, has been pre- 
served for us in the pages of an old magazine.^ 
Oxford, it seems, did not take its name from the 
English seat of learning, but rather from its 
bovine and agricultural interests. And the 
business of the dairy was wont to be enlivened 
with psalm tunes. 

" But the memorable singing-school of 1830 
revolutionized musical matters in Oxford. Be- 
fore that time, the meeting-house, for instance, 
had square pews, both on the floor and in the 
galleries, and a sounding-board over the pulpit, 
which was always just going to fall on the 
preacher's head. The minister was a venerable 
preacher of the old-school orthodoxy. The 
singers sat in single rows running across three 
sides of the meeting-house, the treble fronting 
the bass, and the leading chorister fronting the 
pulpit. The leading chorister was a tall, bilious, 
wiry looking person by the name of Peter Bettis. 
You should have seen him in his glory, especially 
in the full tide of one of the ' fuguing tunes '; 
and more especially when they sang, as they very 
often did, the 122d Psalm, proper metre, 

" ' How pleased and blest was I, 
To hear the people cry.' 

1 Monthly Religious Magazine, Vol. XXV. 



420 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

On the left of the chorister were the picked 
young men, the flower of the Oxford farms; on 
his right the girls, in neat white dresses, all 
ruddy and smiHng as the roses of June. 

" Such was the state of affairs when the sing- 
ing-school opened. A Mr. Solomon Huntington, 
who had taught singing with immense success 
in the neighborhood, came to Oxford and, at 
the Oxford Mansion-house sang and played on 
his bass-viol. He was a portly, sociable gentle- 
man, who had seen the world. He had great 
compass of voice, and when he played on his 
violin, and represented a thunder-storm, a con- 
flagration, the judgment day, the battle of 
Trafalgar, and several other catastrophes, his 
hearers were constrained to acknowledge that 
music had not reached its grand diapason in 
Peter Bettis. 

*' The singing-school opened in the centre 
schoolhouse. It was crammed. Peter Bettis 
was there, with the three vocal sides of his quad- 
rangle. The elite of the village was there in 
reserved seats. All the singers in town came 
thither, bells jingling, boys and girls laughing 
and frolicking. After the school got fairly 
launched and organized, Mr. Solomon Hunting- 
ton had a good many criticisms to make. He 
told them that half of them swallowed the music 
down their throats without letting it come out 
at all. ' Fill your chests and open your mouths.' 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 421 

" But noiv Peter Bettis scarcely moved his 
lips. On the other hand, the more Peter shut 
his mouth the more the others opened theirs. 
I often amused myself later with looking over 
the school-room during the singing, and among 
the odd fancies that came into my head, I rep- 
resented to myself the Oxford singing-school 
overtaken by some sudden judgment and turned 
into petref actions, or, like Lot's wife, into salif ac- 
tions, some with their mouths wide open, some 
with their lips screwed together, and I wondered 
what the geologist would make of it, as he dug 
them up or quarried them out at some future 
age, and whether from this single fact he could 
thread back the history of our singing-school and 
of its division into the trap-door and the lock- 
jaw party. What would he make of the pre- 
served fact.f^ Would he not say that one part 
was gasping for breath? or would he not say 
they were trying to eat the others? Would he 
ever suspect the truth? " 

The " truth ", in this instance, was that a 
deep-seated rivalry had developed between the 
old faction and the new among the singers. For 
the interior of the meeting-house had to be 
entirely rearranged to suit Mr. Huntington; 
whereupon the conservatives expressed their 
disgust at the desecration of the old place by 
bestowing the appellations " hen-roost ", " hay- 
mow '*, and divers other terms suggestive of 



422 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

rural tastes and occupations on the new choir- 
gallery. A young blade named Seth Hubbard, 
having been duly chosen leader of the reform 
party, Peter Bettis never sang any more. After 
a few Sundays, Seth, stationed in the main aisle 
directly in front of the minister, led his followers 
in a fearful and wonderful voluntary. But, the 
Sunday following that, the good parson, stro- 
king the top of his head thoughtfully, said, after 
his sermon had been concluded: "The volun- 
tary can be omitted. Shall we receive the 
Divine blessing? " Subsequently he told some 
one that he thought the voluntary dissipated 
the solemn impression which he wanted the 
sermon to leave upon the minds of the people 
and so felt obliged to leave it out. 

" Then and there," concludes our sprightly 
chronicler, " began ' the Decline and Fall ' 
chapters in the history of the Oxford singing- 
school, — if not of the Oxford parish itself . . . 
thus deepening my belief in the superior value 
of congregational singing." 

Another favorite country diversion was spell- 
ing-school. Spelling as a branch of learning had 
been held in small repute until the publication 
in 1783 of Noah Webster's famous spelling-book, 
the forerunner of the dictionary issued about a 
score of years later by this same author. The 
first book was called the " Grammatical Insti- 
tute," and almost immediately after its publi- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 423 

cation spelling became a craze. The pupil who 
could " spell down the whole school " ranked 
second only to him who surpassed the rest in 
arithmetic. Spelling-matches became a common 
recreation of the winter evenings, the contending 
parties often coming from a considerable dis- 
tance to show their firm hold on this elusive 
art. Spelling bound together more closely the 
interests of the various members of the family, 
older brothers and sisters thinking it not be- 
neath their dignity to stand up and spell with 
the youngest. Horace Greeley was the leading 
speller of his community at the tender age of 
six and frequently, when it became his turn 
once again, had to be roused from the sleep into 
which he had dropped. After the spelling at 
these neighborhood gatherings, came recitations 
of poetry, together with oratory and dialogues. 
The dialogues were often cheap and poor, but 
the oratory was the best America had produced, 
Patrick Henry's " Give Me Liberty or Give Me 
Death " winning easily as prime favorite. 

A " raising " — erecting the frame of a more 
or less ambitious house — was also a social 
occasion. People of every age were wont to 
share in this festival. And when Jeremiah 
Story of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, at the age 
of one hundred, raised the frame of his two- 
story dwelling-house, the younger people of the 
neighborhood supplemented the event by a 



424 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

party at which they " danced all night till broad 
daylight " in the temporary home of their host. 

The autumnal husking was still another 
excuse for joviality. Here young people of 
both sexes shucked the corn-ears, paid forfeits 
on red ones, and consumed a hearty supper in 
which baked beans and pumpkin pies played 
a conspicuous part; dancing to the music of a 
violin or " fiddle " usually closed the evening. 
Admiral Bartholomew James of the Royal Navy, 
during an excursion on the Kennebec River in 
1791, attended a husking at Vassalborough, 
Maine, whose joys he chronicles thus in his 
entertaining journal: ^ 

" During our stay at this place we saw and 
partook of the ceremony of husking corn, a 
kind of ' harvest home ' in England, with the 
additional amusement of kissing the girls when- 
ever they met with a red corn-cob, and to which 
is added dancing, singing and moderate drink- 
mg. 

The " Old Farmer's Almanack " vacillated 
in its opinion as to the economic value of the 
husking. In 1805 we find Mr. Thomas writing: 
" If you make a husking keep an old man be- 
tween every two boys, else your husking will 
turn out a losing." Three years later, on the 
same subject, the dictum is: " In a husking 
there is some fun and frolick, but on the whole, 

1 Navy Records Society, 1896, p. 193. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 425 

it hardly pays the way; for they will not husk 
clean, since many go more for the sport than to 
do any real good." 

Joel Barlow, the Connecticut poet, has given 
us in his poem on Hasty Pudding a classic 
passage on husking parties: 

*' The days grow short; but though the falling 

sun 
To the glad swain proclaims his day's work 

done, 
Night's pleasing shades his various tasks pro- 
long, 
And yield new subjects to my various song. 
For now, the corn-house fill'd, the harvest home, 
The invited neighbors to the husking come; 
A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play, 
Unite their charms, to chase the hours away. 

Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall. 
The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall, 
Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard- 
handed beaux, 
Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, 
Assume their seats, the solid mass attack; 
The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack; 
The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound. 
And the sweet cider trips in silence round. 

The laws of husking every wight can tell — 
And sure no laws he ever keeps so well: 
For each red ear a general kiss he gains. 
With each smut ear he smuts the luckless 

swains; 
But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast. 
Red as her lips and taper as her waist. 



426 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

She walks the round and culls one favored beau, 
Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. 
Various the sport as are the wits and brains 
Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains; 
Till the vast mound of corn is swept away. 
And he that gets the last ear wins the day." 

Sweet cider was the only drink consumed at 
Barlow's husking. But Simon Pure huskings 
provided " Rhum " and whiskey for the enter- 
tainment of guests, with the result that, in 1828, 
Mr. Thomas felt impelled to write quite a little 
homily in dialogue form against what he had 
now decided to be a pernicious social custom: 

" * Come, wife, let us make a husking,' said 
Uncle Pettyworth. * No, no,' replied the pru- 
dent woman, ' you and the boys will be able to 
husk out our little heap without the trouble, the 
waste and expense of a husking f rolick. The girls 
and I will lend a hand, and all together will make 
it but a short job.' Now, had the foolish man 
took the advice of his provident wife, how much 
better would it have turned out for him.^ But 
the boys sat in, and the girls sat in, and his own 
inclinations sat in, and all besetting him at once 
he was persuaded into the unnecessary measure, 
and a husking was determined upon. Then 
one of the boys was soon mounted upon the colt 
with a jug on each side, pacing off to 'Squire 
Hookem's store for four gallons of whiskey. The 
others were sent to give the invitations. The 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 427 

mother being obliged to yield, with her daughters 
went about preparing the supper. Great was 
the gathering at night round the little corn stack. 
Capt. Husky, old Busky, Tom Bluenose and 
about twenty good-for-nothing boys began the 
operations. Red ears and smutty, new rum and 
slack-jaw was the business of the evening." 

Cotton Mather had, some years previously, 
inveighed with characteristic energy against 
this form of entertainment, remarking in 1713 
that " the Riots that have too often accustomed 
our Huskings have carried in them fearful In- 
gratitude and Provocation unto the Glorious 
God." Mather's spirit may have inspired in Doc- 
tor Nathaniel Ames this pleasantly satiric pas- 
sage which I find under date of October 14, 1767: 

" Made an husking Entertainm't. Possibly 
this leafe may last a Century & fall into the 
hands of some inquisitive Person for whose 
Entertainm't I will inform him that now there 
is a Custom amongst us of making an Enter- 
tainment at husking of Indian Corn whereto all 
the neighboring Swains are invited and after 
the Corn is finished they like the Hottentots 
give three Cheers or huzza's but cannot carry 
in the husks without a Rhum bottle they feign 
great Exertion but do nothing till Rlium en- 
livens them, when all is done in a trice, then 
after a hearty Meal about 10 at Night they go 
to their pastimes." 



428 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

A kind of first cousin to the husking was the 
spinning-bee, many descriptions of which sur- 
vive in the annals of old New England. One 
which occurred on May Day, 1788, at Falmouth 
(now Portland), Maine, was thus painstakingly 
chronicled in the pages of the local newspapers: 

" On the 1st instant, assembled at the house 
of the Rev. Samuel Deane, of this town, more 
than one hundred of the fair sex, married and 
single ladies, most of whom were skilled in the 
important art of spinning. An emulous in- 
dustry was never more apparent than in this 
beautiful assembly. The majority of fair hands 
gave motion to not less than sixty wheels. Many 
were occupied in preparing the materials, be- 
sides those who attended to the entertainment 
of the rest — provision for which was mostly 
presented by the guests themselves, or sent in 
by other generous promoters of the exhibition, 
as were also the materials for the work. Near 
the close of the day, Mrs. Deane was presented 
by the company with two hundred and thirty- 
six seven knotted skeins of excellent cotton and 
linen yarn, the work of the day, excepting about 
a dozen skeins which some of the company 
brought in ready spun. Some had spun six, and 
many not less than five skeins apiece. She 
takes this opportunity of returning thanks to 
each, which the hurry of the day rendered im- 
practicable at the time. To conclude, and 




Q c 

HI C3 

a: s 

< g 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 429 

crown the day, a numerous band of the best 
singers attended in the evening, and performed 
an agreeable variety of excellent pieces in 
psalmody. 

" The price of a virtuous woman is far above 
rubies. . . . She layeth her hands to the spindle, 
and her hands hold the distaff." ^ 

One of the heartiest and most characteristic 
of New England farm festivals was sheep-shear- 
ing. Nantucket long made an important holi- 
day of this annual operation, and in an old 
newspaper I have found the following vivid 
description of what occurred at these times: 

" Sheep-Shearing. — This patriarchal festival 
was celebrated on Monday and Tuesday last, 
in this place with more than ordinary interest. 
For some days previous, the sheep-drivers had 
been busily employed in collecting from all 
quarters of the island the dispersed members 
of the several flocks, and committing them to 
the great sheepfold, about two miles from town, 
preparatory to the ceremonies of ablution and 
devestment. . . . The business of identifying, 
seizing, and yarding the sheep creates a degree 
of bustle that adds no small amusement to the 
general activity of the scene. The whole num- 
ber of sheep and lambs brought within the great 
enclosure is said to be 16,000. 

1 Cumberland Gazette, May 8, 1788, as quoted by William Willis, 
in " Journals of Smith and Deane," Portland, 1849, and by George 
Lyman Kittredge in " The Old Farmer and His Almanack." 



m»^ii«Mi« nM —M<»«iMiir>i— m— 



430 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

*' As these are the only important hohdays 
which the inhabitants of Nantucket have ever 
been accustomed to observe, it is not to be 
marvelled at that all other business should on 
such occasions be suspended; and that the 
labors attendant thereon should be mingled 
with a due share of recreation. Accordingly, 
the fancies of the juvenile portion of our com- 
munity are for a long time prior to the annual 
June ' Shearing ' occupied in dreams of fun 
and schemes of frolic. With the mind's eye 
they behold the long array of tents, surmounted 
with motley banners flaunting in the breeze, 
and stored with tempting tidbits, candidates 
for money and for mastication. With the mind's 
ear they distinguish the spirit-stirring squeak 
of the fiddle, the gruff jangling of the drum, 
the somniferous smorzando of the jew's-harp, 
and the enlivening scuffle of little feet in a 
helter-skelter jig upon a deal platform. And 
their visions, unlike those of riper mortals, are 
always realized. For be it known, that, inde- 
pendent of the preparations made by persons 
actually concerned in the mechanical duties of 
this day, there are erected on a rising ground in 
the vicinity of the sheep-field some twenty pole 
and sail-cloth edifices, furnished with seats 
and tables and casks and dishes, severally filled 
with jocund faces, baked pigs, punch and cakes, 
and surrounded with divers savory concomitants 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 431 

in the premises, courteously dispensed by the 
changeful master of ceremonies, studious of 
custom and emulous of cash. 

" For the accommodation of those merry 
urchins and youngsters who choose to * trip it 
on the light fantastic toe,' a floor is laid at one 
corner, over which presides some African genius 
of melody, brandishing a cracked violin, and 
drawing most moving notes from its agonized 
intestines, by dint of gripping fingers and right- 
angled elbows. 

" We know of no parallel for this section of 
the entertainment, other than what the Boston 
boys were wont to denominate * Nigger 'Lec- 
tion ' — so called in contradistinction from Ar- 
tillery Election. At the former anniversary, 
which is the day on which ' Who is Governor ' 
is oflScially announced, the blacks and blackees 
are permitted to perambulate the Mall and 
Common, to buy gingerbread and beer with 
the best of folks, and to mingle in the mysteries 
of pawpaw." 

Those whose interest in " Nigger 'Lection " 
has been piqued by this tantalizing allusion to 
Boston Common on a day when oysters, gin- 
gerbread, lobsters, and wafiles were displayed 
on every side, and indulgence in them urged by 
genial old darkey ladies wearing gay-colored 
handkerchiefs of the latest Southern style, are 
referred to the account, in a previous book of 



432 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

mine/ of this peculiarly Boston holiday. Our 
concern here is with country festivities. And 
of these none was more characteristic than the 
quilting-party. 

That quilting-party of the song, following 
which a lovelorn youth " saw Nellie home " 
through four or five stanzas of mixed metaphor 
and sentimental twaddle, appears, for poetic 
purposes, to have taken place in the evening. 
But the quilting-party of old New England 
was an afternoon affair and was followed by a 
tea held at so early an hour that the women 
saw themselves home without any dij5iculty. 
Apart from the tea-drinking, it was a rather 
serious piece of neighborly cooperation too, — 
just as a " raising " was for the men. A good 
deal of preliminary patchwork would have been 
done before the party; its great function was 
to fasten the outside covering of the quilt to 
the lining and its soft layer of cotton wadding. 
To do this, the women grouped themselves 
around a " quiltin' frame," raised at a conve- 
nient height upon the backs of chairs, and 
stitched diligently the whole afternoon. 

Likewise talked! No gathering in the whole 
year compared with the quilting-party as a 
gossi-p-fest. For because the work demanded 
no thought on the part of those familiar with the 
process of quilting, and because the participants 

1 " Romantic Days in Old Boston," p. 92. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 433 

were all close together, facing inwards as at a 
square table, many things which could only be 
whispered here first found breath. But the 
crowning joy of every quilting-party was the 
supper afterwards, with its tea, pale in color 
but really strong, served in the hostess' best 
china, with bread and butter, hot biscuits, peach 
preserves, apple-and-quince sauce, doughnuts, 
mince pie, custard pie, fruit cake, sponge cake, 
and mellow sage cheese. Whether the cause 
be the gossip or the collation, I find my woman- 
soul yearning, as I write these words, for a revi- 
val of the quilting-party. Even I, who abomi- 
nate sewing, would " quilt " for such rewards as 
these. 

In all the country diversions thus far noted, 
intellectual interest is conspicuous by its absence. 
That element was first introduced into New Eng- 
land life by the Lyceum, the earliest example 
of which was established at Millbury, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1826. Within five years after that 
date, nearly every village of any size had its lec- 
ture course ; a very interesting chapter might be 
written on the history and influence of this new 
institution. But that would carry us beyond 
the space and time limitations set for the present 
volume. It must, however, be observed at 
this point that the rise of the Lyceum marked 
the passing of the various " bees," with their 
concomitants of kisses and cider. It is also 



434 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

interesting to record in this connection that 
the Millbury which boasts the first Lyceum 
boasts also the first temperance society. 

Tradition tells us that the object of this 
temperance society was to prevent its members 
from drinking too much! The organization 
met at the schoolhouse every Saturday evening, 
and each member then gave an account of his 
week's indulgence; if, in the opinion of the 
majority, any had overstepped the bounds of 
moderation, such were placed upon an allowance 
for the week to come. One night a member 
related that he had abstained entirely for the 
week just passed, but his words were utterly 
disbeheved; the thing was regarded as im- 
possible in human experience. And when this 
same member went on to say that he would 
never drink again, his good faith was openly 
challenged; it was believed that he must take 
his dram in secret! But, though this adven- 
turous soul was subjected to every kind of 
espionage, he was never again discovered drink- 
ing liquor. Thus he helped to create an entirely 
new standard of conduct for country life in New 
England. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 435 



CHAPTER XII 

AMUSEMENTS OF THE BIG TOWN 

THE sole amusement of the earliest New 
Englanders was attendance at " meet- 
ing " and at the Thursday lecture, which 
provided a slightly diluted repetition of the 
pleasures of the Sabbath. Then, in the fall 
of 1634, Boston experienced the excitement 
offered by Anne Hutchinson's discussions of the 
sermons which had been preached the previous 
Sunday. One of these weekly meetings, held 
in Mrs. Hutchinson's own home on the site 
afterwards sacred to the Old Corner Bookstore, 
was designed for men and women, and one was 
for women exclusively. Both soon became 
epoch-making. For the talk here was always 
bright and pithy, the leader's wit quick and 
penetrating and the topic under discussion 
theology, — the one subject in which all men and 
women of that day were deeply interested. 

Hawthorne's genius has conjured up the scene 
at these first Boston " Conferences," as we 
should call them to-day. Thus we may share, 
with the ** crowd of hooded women and men in 



436 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

steeple hats and close-cropped hair . . . assem- 
bled at the door and open windows of a house 
newly built," the thrill of this new opportunity 
for social intercourse. Well may we believe 
that " an earnest expression glowed in every 
face . . . and some pressed inward as if the 
bread of life were to be dealt forth, and they 
feared to lose their share." 

But the bread of life was too precious a thing, 
in old New England, to be dispensed by any 
except the authorized clergy. Hence the speedy 
banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson. After her 
day Boston sponsored no more spiritual and 
intellectual orgies under the leadership of the 
laity. 

Then it was, very likely, that this big town, 
for the first time, took to dancing. 

The savages themselves were scarcely more 
fond of dancing than the colonists who came 
after them, and though dancing-schools were at 
first forbidden in New England, and dancing 
prohibited in Massachusetts taverns and at 
weddings, we constantly find allusions which 
show that there was dancing and a good deal of it. 
There is extant a letter written by John Cotton, 
in which that good man declares that he does 
not condemn dancing, " even mixt," as a whole. 
What he is opposed to, he explains, is " lascivious 
dancing to wanton ditties with amorous ges- 
tures and wanton dalliances," — just the kind 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 437 

of dancing to which all decent folk are rightly- 
objecting in our own day. 

By the time John Cotton's grandson, Cotton 
Mather, came to be a power in Boston, the vogue 
of dancing had so increased that we find Sewall 
recording : 

" the Ministers Come to the Court and com- 
plain against a Dancing Master who seeks to 
set up here and hath mixt Dances, and his time 
of Meeting is Lecture-Day; and 'tis reported 
he should say that by one Play he could teach 
more Divinity than Mr. Willard or the Old 
Testament. Mr. Moodey said 'twas not a 
time for N. E. to dance. Mr. Mather struck 
at the Root, speaking against mixt Dances." 

The Mather to whom Sewall refers in this 
last sentence is Increase Mather, who had 
married John Cotton's only daughter, and the 
gist of his sermon on " Gynecandrical Dancing 
or that which is commonly called Mixt or 
Promiscuous Dancing of Men and Women, be 
they elder or younger persons together " has 
come down to us. Characterizing this indul- 
gence as the great sin of the Daughters of Zion, 
the preacher exclaimed: " Who were the in- 
ventors of Petulant Dancings? Learned men 
have well observed that the Devil was the First 
Inventor of the impleaded Dances, and the 
Gentiles who worshipped him the first Practi- 
tioners of this Art." Then, knowing that 



438 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Miriam and David of the sacrosanct Old Testa- 
ment would be adduced to controvert his 
arguments, Mr. Mather continued: "Those 
Instances are not at all to the Purpose." And 
since in those days, — Anne Hutchinson having 
been banished, — nobody talked back to a minis- 
ter, we find Sewall, a month after the preaching 
of this sermon, recording, with the tight-lipped 
terseness of a man who has gained his point: 
" Mr. Francis Stepney, the Dancing Master, 
... is ordered not to keep a Dancing School; 
if he does will be taken in contempt and be pro- 
ceeded with accordingly." The two generations 
of ingrowing Puritanism between John Cotton 
and his grandson had developed a standard of 
ethics which approved this kind of treatment 
for those whom the clergy had black-listed. 

Yet, when the royal governors began to have 
their way, dancing was made very welcome. 
In 1713 Boston saw a ball at which those of 
the governor's set danced until three in the 
morning — and, by Revolutionary times, every- 
body who wanted to was dancing. Even the 
ministers and the Baptists! For " ordination 
balls " became a recognized feature of welcom- 
ing a pastor. And when John Brown of Provi- 
dence moved into his new house, he celebrated 
the occasion by a dance, the invitations to which 
were printed, after the fashion of the day, on 
the backs of playing-cards.^ 




^^C' 



■,i-f>>>- 




:s'X;o;X/r. X A xxxxxxxxxxx 

-. y 

;< Mr. JoHM Brow Ml rcqueftf 
y-thcFay^ro^ — ^^Ud<i 

X s^:^y\ uf^^^ 

' '; Company to ?i, Dance, a4" 

; H Houlc on tlie Hill, oa Fridaj^ 

i 6 Evening next, Seven a'Cloclg^ g ^ 



X 






PLAYING-CARD INVITATION FROM JOHN BROWN OF PROVI- 
DENCE FOR A DANCE AT HIS NEW HOUSE, 1788. 
From the original in the John Carter Brown Library. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 439 

A fashionable dancing-master of Boston was 
William Turner, who afterwards resided in 
Cambridge. Mr. Turner held his classes at the 
corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets and 
advertised thus in Boston and Salem papers 
just before the Revolution: 

" Mr. Turner informs the Ladies and Gentle- 
men in Town and Country that he has reduced 
his price for teaching from Six Dollars Entrance 
to One Guinea, and from Four Dollars per 
month to Three. Those ladies and Gentlemen 
who propose sending their children to be taught 
will notice no books will be kept as Mr. T. has 
suffered much from Booking. The pupils must 
pay monthly if they are desirous the School 
should continue." 

When John Baptist Tioli came to Providence 
in 1768 and announced a " DANCING SCHOOL 
. . . where will be taught the Minuet, Double 
Minuet, Quadrille Minuet, Paspie, Gavotta, 
Alcuver, Hornpipe, Country Dances &c of the 
newest Figures "] he was very well received. 
His classes were held three days in the week, 
ladies being taught from nine to twelve A. m., 
and the hours from five until eight p. m. being 
" solely devoted to the Instruction of Gentle- 
men." After one month, however, as the ad- 
vertisement adroitly points out, "Gentlemen 
and Ladies will be directed to attend together, 
on every Friday Evening, at which Time their 



440 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

respective Parents inclined to Speculation will 
have free access." \ The gentry of Providence 
appear to have availed themselves liberally 
and gladly of Mr. Tioli's instructions. ^When 
the Italian left the town, after a farewell concert 
and ball, he expressed in a printed card deep 
gratitude for the favors that had been shown 
him. , " 'Tis with Reluctance he quits a Place, 
the Inhabitants of which are justly remarked 
for their Politeness towards Strangers, among 
whom he should think himself happy in residing, 
did not Business urge his immediate Departure." 
^ Providence J people continued to dance, too, 
not only in Hacker's Hall on the Towne Street, 
where many a gay party diverted itself during 
the next two generations, but at private houses. 
The " Cotillion Parties " held in Peter S. 
Minard's Washington Hall, beginning about 
1825, carried on the dancing traditions of this 
town, and from sixty to ninety young ladies 
\ and gentlemen attended these gatherings regu- 

larly. In the biography of Almon D. Hodges, 
/ who was one of the managers, we learn that at 

'^ these festivities "there was dancing, with bu- 

glers to punctuate the time; and a supper of 
cakes and pies and wine -^ as many as seventeen 
bottles of wine, costing one dollar apiece, were 
charged in one bill; and there were carriages 
provided for somebodies, perhaps distinguished 
guests, at the general expense." Yet the busi- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 441 

ness management was so good that at the end 
of the season of 1826 there was on hand a sur- 
plus of eleven dollars and fifty cents, which was 
presented to the Dorcas Society. 

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, also had its 
organized dancing-parties, held in the beautiful 
Assembly House, which Mr. Michael Whidden 
built and owned. The house was of wood — 
large, long, and painted white. On its lower 
floor were three great parlors, a kitchen, and 
an immense hall and staircase. The assembly- 
room took the whole front of the second story 
and was about sixty by thirty feet, with large 
windows and an orchestra over the entrance. 
Back of it were two dressing-rooms. Chande- 
liers for wax candles, deep cornices, and richly 
gilded carving decorated these apartments. 
Here, from the days of the Revolution until 
Franklin Hall was built, about 1820, the flower 
of Portsmouth was wont to assemble. For of 
this town, widely noted for the elegance of its 
entertainments and the grace of its social life, 
these subscription dances were the chief glory; 
Washington and Lafayette were both glad to be 
the Assembly's guests of honor on the occasion 
of their visits to " the old town by the sea." 

These assemblies had two managers, we 
learn, " who, with powdered hair and chapeau 
under left arm, looked the impersonation of 
power and dignity. Each lady was taken into 



442 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

the ball-room by a manager, and seated. The 
ladies wore low-necked dresses of silks and satins 
and velvets. . . . The gentlemen appeared in 
prescribed costume, which was blue coat with 
bright buttons, chapeau under arm, knee- 
breeches, silk stockings, pumps and white kid 
gloves. 

*' At the appointed moment the numbers were 
called for the draw dance, after that the cotil- 
lions, which were voluntary. A manager led 
the first dance with the eldest lady or a bride, 
if one were present; and everything was con- 
ducted with great state. About ten o'clock, 
sandwiches of tongue and ham, with thin bis- 
cuit, were handed round on large waiters, in 
turn with sangaree, lemonade and chocolate." 

Mrs. Ichabod Goodwin, among whose papers 
were found these paragraphs on dancing at the 
old Assembly House, ^ adds that here, also, the 
Boston Stock Company gave summer enter- 
tainments for many years. On these occasions 
Mr. and Mrs. Duff, Mr. and Mrs. Pelby, and 
others " played five nights in the week to the 
elite of the town, at a dollar a ticket." The 
town had by this time, it is thus made clear, 
emancipated itseK from the narrowness which 
on June 5, 1762, caused the House of Repre- 
sentatives in the province of New Hampshire 
to decree that players be not made welcome to 

' Quoted in " The Portsmouth Book." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 443 

Portsmouth, " at least at this time." The 
reasons behind this prohibition were alleged to 
be: " Because when such entertainments are 
a novelty, they have a more peculiar influence 
on the minds of young people, greatly endanger 
their morals by giving them a turn for intriguing, 
amusement and pleasure, even upon the best 
and most favorable supposition, that nothing 
contrary to decency and good manners is exhib- 
ited; yet the strong impressions made by the 
gallantries, amors and other moving representa- 
tions, with which the best players abound will 
dissipate and indispose the minds of youth not 
used to them, to everything important and 
serious; and as there is a general complaint of 
a prevailing turn to pleasure and idleness in 
most young people among us, which is too well 
grounded, the entertainments of the stage would 
inflame that temper. All young countries have 
much more occasion to encourage a spirit of 
industry and application to business, than to 
countenance schemes of amusement and pleas- 
ure.'* Those who are interested in the steps 
leading to this legislation are referred to my book 
on the theatre.^ 

In Providence, as in New Hampshire, the 
theatre was suppressed at this same time not 
from religious or moral scruples, but because 
plays and players would have engendered habits 

' " Romance of the American Theatre," p. 33. 



444 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

of extravagant spending. From Williamsburg,^ 
where their efforts had given much pleasure, 
there came to Rhode Island (in 1762) David 
Douglass and his associates, armed with a letter 
of endorsement from Governor Dinwiddle of 
Virginia. They were so well received at New- 
port, where they gave " a Benefit Night for the 
Support of the Poor," that, having secured a 
letter of introduction to John and Nicholas 
Brown of Providence, they proceeded to erect 
a " Histrionic Academy " in the latter city; 
and there opened, in July, with a representation 
entitled " Moro Castle taken by Storm." The 
acting in this play appears to have been good 
and the performance enjoyed by those who 
attended it. But there had been a drought, 
and the hay-crop was light. The town fathers 
were not minded to entertain players just then. 
Hence there was speedily put through " A Act 
made for suppressing all Kinds of Stage plays 
or Theatrical Shows within this Colony," — 
and the obnoxious comedians were summarily 
warned out of town. 

A humorous touch is lent to the accounts of 
this action by the story that the sheriff, whose 
duty it was '* to proclaim the Act by beat of 
Drum through the Streets of the Compact part 
of the Town of Providence ", adroitly managed 

^ See " Ups and Downs of the Theatre in the South," in " The 
Romance of the American Theatre." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 445 

to combine business with pleasure and refrained 
from announcing the dictum of the Assembly 
until after he had witnessed the evening's 
performance. He appears to have sensed the 
fact that another quarter of a century must 
elapse before he would again have a chance to 
enjoy the drama in Providence. 

Far more profitable than " stage diversions ", 
were held to be such an " Entertainment for 
the Curious " as that described in the Providence 
Gazette and Country for March, 1764, in which 
it was shown how one might guard against light- 
ning in a manner not " inconsistent with any of 
the Principles of natural or reveal'd Religion "; 
or that *' artful Piece of Statuary . . . worthy 
to be seen by the Curious " which, at about this 
same time, set forth " the famous City of Jerusa- 
lem." 

" Sights " rather than theatrical performances 
flourished in all the big towns of eighteenth- 
century New England. One of the earliest 
advertisements which I have found of such 
" sights " is in the Boston News-Letter of Decem- 
ber 15, 1726, and announces that " The Lyon 
that was to be seen at Mrs. Adams's at the 
South End, Boston, is now Ship'd on Board 
the Sloop Phoenix, in order to be sent off to the 
West Indies &c. And He is now to be seen on 
board said Sloop at the North side of the Long 
Wharff, Boston, ... at 6d. each person." 



446 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Another early exhibition is thus chronicled in 
the Boston Evening Post of Monday, February 
29, 1748: 

" Whereas the Curious Musical Machine, 
and the Posture-Boy, at the house of John 
Williams in King street, are to be shown by the 
owner but a very little while longer in this 
Town, those minded to see the same are desired 
to give speedy attendance: And any Gentleman 
or others minded to purchase the Living Crea- 
ture called a Tyger-Lyon (which is still to be 
seen there) may treat with the Owner at said 
Place as also for said Machine. 

" N. B. Any, Gentlemen or Ladies that have 
a Desire to see the said Machine and Posture- 
Boy at their Houses may be gratified therein 
(in the Day-time) by sending for the same, 
provided there be Company of 12 Persons at 
least, or Pay equivalent for that Number, at 
Two Shillings, old Tenor, each." 

On October 8, 1741, "a Concert of Musick " 
was announced to be given " at Mr. Deblois's 
Great Room in Wing's Lane " (now Elm Street). 
" Tickets to be had at the place of performance, 
at Ten Shillings each. To begin at Six, and end 
at Three " (sic). 

On October 2, 1762, the following announce- 
ment appeared: 

" This evening at a large Room in Brattle 
street, formerly Green and Walker's store will 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 447 

be read an opera called Love in a Village, By 
a Person who has Read and Sung in most of 
the great Towns of America. All the Songs will 
be sung. He personates all the Characters, and 
enters into the different Humors or Passions as 
they change from one to another throughout 
the Opera." 

Who the individual was who so deftly accom- 
modated himself to the Puritanical prejudices 
of the town as to play all the characters in an 
opera himself is not known. 

Only with great difficulty had the daughters 
of the Puritans been permitted to enjoy or to 
study music. Doctor John Earle declared that 
the true Puritan woman " suffers not her daugh- 
ters to learne on the Virginalls, because of their 
affinity with the Organs." Yet we find Judge 
Sewall, a Puritan of the Puritans, taking his 
wife's virginals to be repaired. And soon the 
spinet and the harpsichord were frequently 
being purchased by wealthy citizens who were 
also God-fearing. 

To the accompaniment of the " new Clementi 
with ghttering keys " maidens then sang the 
sentimental ballads of the day with just as 
much enjoyment and zest as they now sing arias 
from grand opera while accompanying them- 
selves on a rich-toned " baby grand." And 
people generally suffered just as much in con- 
sequence. John Quincy Adams, describing in 



448 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

his diary for 1788 an evening party at Newbury- 
port, where he was then reading law, comments 
in sprightly fashion on the music at such affairs. 
*' After we had sat a little while the infallible 
request to sing made its appearance. One 
could not sing, and another could not sing, and 
a total incapacity to sing was declared all round 
the room. If upon such occasions everyone 
would adhere to his first assertion it would be 
very agreeable, at least to me; for in these 
mixt companies, when the musical powers are 
finally exerted, the only recompense for the 
intolerable tediousness of urging generally is a 
few very insipid songs, sung in a very insipid 
manner. But the misfortune is that someone 
always relents. When we had gone through 
this ceremony and had grown weary of it, an- 
other equally stupid succeeded. It was playing 
pawns: a number of pledges were given all 
'round, and kissing was the only condition upon 
which they were redeemed. Ah! what kissing! 
'tis a profanation of one of the most endearing 
demonstrations of Love. . . . Thus we pass'd 
the heavy hours till about ten o'clock, when 
we all retired." ^ 

Whether the girl had any musical talent or not, 
she was taught to play upon an " instrument ", 
because this accomplishment was supposed to 
add to her charm for men. Similarly, dancing 

' Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1902. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 449 

was encouraged, despite the fierce frowns of the 
clergy, because it promoted grace and that erect 
carriage held to be an indispensable attribute 
of the elegant young woman. It was no less 
in truth than in jest that Doctor Holmes wrote: 

" They braced my aunt against a board 

To make her straight and tall, 
They laced her up, they starved her down. 

To make her light and small. 
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair. 

They screwed it up with pins — 
Oh, never mortal suffered more 

In penance for her sins." 

Yet this aunt and the other girls of her set 
had plenty of good times withal. Gaiety and 
feasting abounded in all the big towns of New 
England, especially during the period just pre- 
ceding the Revolution. Rowe's diary pictures 
for us a sumptuousness of social life unlike any- 
thing to be found to-day in American towns of 
less than twenty thousand inhabitants, — Bos- 
ton's size at that period. And slender as the 
girls were, they must now and then, at any rate, 
have eaten as no girl of to-day ever eats. Din- 
ner was served in the early afternoon and supper 
in the evening. The quantity of heavy food 
consumed was astounding. Venison and salmon 
appear to have been favorite dishes, though we 
find Rowe recording, on March 20, 1765: "had 



450 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

a fine lamb for dinner; the whole weighed 28 
lbs.; this is the first lamb I have tasted this 
season." Other dishes chronicled with equal ap- 
preciation are " a fine hind quarter of veal " 
(February 8, 1776) ; " buffalow stakes which were 
very tender " (April 9, 1770) ; partridges, the 
first of the season (August 30, 1766); and a 
" pigg which proved tuff " (September 18, 1764). 
Cherries and strawberries are the only fruits 
named in the diary and green peas the only 
vegetables. So, for lack of salads and entrees, 
Mrs. Rowe and her fair friends must needs 
have partaken often of partridges, " pigg," and 
" buff alow stakes." 

Also, at times, of turtle. Captain Francis 
Goelet, a New York merchant-mariner, has left 
us several piquant pictures of good times in 
which turtle figured. Under date of October 
2, 1750, we find in his journal: ^ " Had an invi- 
tation to day to Go to a Turtle Frolick with a 
Compy of Gentn and Ladies at Mr. Richard- 
son's in Cambridge abt 6 Miles from Towne. I 
accordingly waited on Miss Betty Wendell with 
a Chaise, who was my Partner, the Companie 
Consisted of about 20 Couple Gentn and Ladies 
of the Best Fashion in Boston, viz. the two 
'Miss Phips, Lut Gouoenr Daughters, the Miss 
Childs, Miss Quinceys, Miss Wendells &c. 

^ " Journal of Captain Francis Goelet: " Boston, David Clapp 
and Son. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 451 

Dances Several Minuits and Country Dances, 
and where very Merry about Dusk we all rode 
Home, and See our Partners safe, and Spent the 
Evening at Capt. Maglachlins &c." 

One of the pleasant little jaunts in which 
Captain Goelet participated at this time was 
out to the gracious country home of Mr. Ed- 
mund Quincey, near which was " a Beautifull 
Cannal which is Supply 'd by a Brook, which is 
well Stock with Fine Silver Eels, we Caught a 
fine Parcell and Carried them Home and had 
them drest for Supper." Fish loom large the 
next day, too, when a trip to Marblehead is 
being described. '* This Place is Noted for 
Children and Noureches the most of any Place 
for its Bigness in North America, it's Said the 
Chief Cause is attributed to their feeding on 
Cods Heads, &c. which is their principall Diett." 

Even the Puritan's Thanksgiving was made to 
yield up joy to this buoyant soul. The entry 
in the journal for November 1 is: " This Being 
a General Thanksgiveing day, was Strictly 
Observed heere and more so by the Presbyte- 
rians, its Calld their Christmas, and is the Great- 
est Holyday they have in the Year it is Observed 
more Strict then Sunday. Went to Meeting 
with Capt. Wendell and Family where Dyned 
with a Large Compy Gentn and Ladies and 
where very Meriy had a Good deal Chat and 
Spent the Evening at Mr. Jacob Wendells with 



452 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

a Large Company Sup'd Drank A Number 
Bumpers and Sung Our Songs &c. till morng." 
So, even without the theatre, there seems to 
have been a good deal " doing " in the big town 
of the eighteenth century. And by the time 
the nineteenth century had fairly taken pos- 
session of the stage, play-acting, too, came into 
its own, as I have elsewhere shown. 



/ 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 453 



CHAPTER XIII 

FUNERALS AS FESTIVALS 

JUST as the Puritans gave parties when their 
children were born, — brewing " groaning 
beare " and baking " groaning cakes " in 
preparation for this great event, — so they 
made festivals of their funerals. A funeral was 
counted a much more important function than 
a wedding, and attendance at funerals began at 
a very early age. Judge Sewall tells of the at- 
tendance of his little children at funerals when 
only five and six years old; little girls were 
often pall-bearers at the funerals of their child- 
ish mates. 

On these occasions, at least, it would seem as if 
the customary indulgence in hquor as a solace 
for grief would have been omitted. But such 
was not the case. Even as late as the early 
nineteenth century, according to Lucius Man- 
lius Sargent, children were not only employed 
as pall-bearers but conducted themselves just 
as adults did after the performance of this office. 

" Twelve years ago, a clergyman of Newbury- 
port told me that, when settled in Concord, 



454 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

New Hampshire, some years before, he officiated 
at the funeral of a little boy. The body was 
borne, as is quite common, in a chaise, and six 
little nominal pall-bearers, the oldest not thir- 
teen, walked by the side of the vehicle. Before 
they left the house, a sort of master of cere- 
monies took them to the table and mixed a 
tumbler of gin, water, and sugar for each." ^ 

The Puritans seem to have taken quite literally 
the exhortation: " Give strong drink unto him 
that is ready to perish and wine unto those that 
be of heavy hearts." When David Porter, of 
Hartford, was drowned, in the year 1678, the 
bill for the expenses of the recovery and burial 
of his body included liquor for those who dived 
for him, for those who brought him home, and 
for the jury of inquest. Eight gallons and three 
quarts of wine and a barrel of cider were thus 
consumed. The winding-sheet and coffin used 
at this funeral cost thirty shillings, but the liquor 
consumed came to more than twice that sum. 

There is no question whatever that the ad- 
vance of the temperance idea has " done for 
funerals "; has " done ", at any rate, for funerals 
as festivals. In the old days invitations to 
funerals were wont to be sent around as they 
are at present to balls and parties. Conse- 
quently funeral processions were often of most 
imposing length. Sargent recalls one very 

1 " Dealings with the Dead," p. 13. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 455 

long one which, while going south by the Old 
South Church in Boston, met another of equal 
length, going north, and delayed the progress 
of a third coming down School Street. 

Cotton Mather's funeral is thus described in 
the New England Weekly Journal of February 
16, 1728: 

" On Monday last, the remains of the late very 
Reverend and Learned Dr. Cotton Mather, who 
deceas'd on Tuesday the 13th. Instant to the 
great loss and sorrow of this Town and Country 
were very honourably interred. His Reverend 
Colleague in deep Mourning, with the Brethren 
of the Church walking in a Body before the 
Corpse. The Six first Ministers of the Boston 
lecture supported the Pall. Several Gentle- 
men of the bereaved Flock took their turns to 
bare the Coffin. After which followed first the 
bereaved Relatives in Mourning; then His 
Honour the Lieut Governour, the Honourable 
His Majesty's Council, and House of Repre- 
sentatives; and then a large Train of Ministers, 
Justices, Merchants, Scholars and other Princi- 
pal Inhabitants both of Men and Women. 
The Streets were crowded with People and the 
Windows fill'd with Sorrowful Spectators all 
the way to the Burying Place: Where the 
Corpse was deposited in a Tomb belonging to 
the worthy Family." 

One great expense of every funeral was gloves. 



456 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

In some places a pair of gloves was sent as an 
invitation to relatives and friends and digni- 
taries, whose presence was desired at the cere- 
mony; over one thousand pairs of gloves were 
given away at the funeral of Governor Belcher's 
wife. Social distinctions were carefully ob- 
served in the quality of gloves thus employed, 
and frequently provision concerning this detail 
was made in a man's will. Thus Samuel Fuller 
of Plymouth directed, in 1633, that his sister 
was to mourn his departure in gloves worth 
twelve shillings, though gloves worth only two 
shiUings sixpence were held to be quite ade- 
quate for the grief of a certain Rebecca Prime, 
whom he also named in his will. To the under- 
bearers who carried the coffin were usually given 
different and cheaper gloves than those pur- 
chased for the pall-bearers. 

At the funerals of the wealthy, rings also 
played an important part. These were given to 
relatives and to persons of prominence in the 
community with such a degree of lavishness 
that Sewall, between 1687 and 1725, received 
no less than fifty-seven mourning rings. When 
Doctor Samuel Buxton of Salem died, in 1758, 
at the advanced age of eighty-one, he left to 
his heirs a quart tankard full of mourning rings 
which he had received at funerals. Sometimes 
these rings were quite expensive; those dis- 
tributed upon the death of Waitstill Winthrop 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 457 

were worth over a pound apiece, — and they 
numbered sixty in all. 

In design, mourning rings were usually of gold 
enamelled in black and bore a death's head, a 
coffin containing a skeleton, a winged skull, an 
urn or some other similarly cheering emblem. 
Trite little mottoes such as " Death parts United 
Hearts," or " Prepared be to follow me " 
adorned some of the rings; and in other cases 
a framed lock of the deceased friend's hair 
constituted the chief distinction. At the rooms 
of the Essex Institute in Salem may be seen a 
collection of mourning rings; this organization 
has also published a list of all the mourning 
rings known to be in existence in that old town. 
For these relics were so greatly prized by the 
colonists and their immediate descendants as 
to be carefully bequeathed from one generation 
to another. 

Besides being given gloves and a ring, the 
parson at these early funerals was usually pre- 
sented with a scarf of white linen as fine as the 
family could afford. This scarf was about 
three yards long and was worn folded over the 
right shoulder; rosettes of black crape fastened 
it at this point as well as where the ends crossed 
under the left arm. After the funeral, the scarf 
was made into a shirt, which the officiating 
minister was supposed to wear as a memorial 
of the deceased. 



458 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Also of fine white linen, though perfectly 
plain, was the shroud, a garment exactly the 
same for men and women, and cut long enough 
to be tied together with a cord below the feet. 
The coffin itself was lined with white linen, and 
a curtain of linen, pinked on its lower edge 
and just long enough to cover the face of the 
dead, was nailed to its head; this was thrown 
back when those present at the funeral were 
" viewing the remains." Everything possible 
about the house was covered with white linen 
to heighten the ghostly effect, special attention 
in this way being given to mirrors and pictures. 
No outside box was used in the early days, and 
the handles of the coffin were of rope and 
** practicable." For some time there were no 
hearses; in the country districts, where the 
distance was very long, a farm-wagon was used 
to transport the coffin. But for as far as a 
couple of miles it was frequently carried on a 
bier covered with a black pall. The bearers 
would then be organized into groups of four 
and would relieve each other from time to time 
without breaking step, — having been strength- 
ened and refreshed for their task by drinking from 
the bottle which was kept in free circulation. 

When people of quality or of high public 
office died, the funeral was a very impressive 
function. And, of course, it was then an honor 
to be invited. Sewall, who hated Governor 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 459 

Andros, was yet proud to attend the funeral 
of the governor's lady, a festival which he de- 
scribes as follows: 

" Friday, Feb. 10, 1687 — Between 4. and 5. 
I went to the Funeral of Lady Andros, having 
been invited by the Clark of the South Company. 
Between 7. and 8 links illuminating the cloudy 
air. The Corps was carried into the Herse 
drawn by Six Horses. The Souldiers making 
a Guard from the Governor's House down the 
Prison Lane to the South-Meetinghouse, there 
taken out and carried in at the western dore, 
and set in the Alley before the pulpit, with Six 
Mourning Women by it. House made Ught 
with Candles and Torches. Was a great noise 
and clamor to keep people out of the House, 
that might not rush in too soon. I went home, 
where about nine aclock I heard the Bells toll 
again for the Funeral. It seems Mr. Ratcliffs 
Text was. Cry, all flesh is Grass." 

This being a Church of England service, 
Sewall would not stay for the sermon. But 
when Governor Bradstreet died and was buried 
in Salem, the judge journeyed thither with 
alacrity, staying to the very end of the ceremony 
and recording that he " bore the Feet of the 
Corps into the Tomb." 

Even on those occasions when there was real 
grief over the loss of the departed, the attendant 
ceremonies appear to have gone far towards 



460 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

comforting the bereaved. Sewall writes with 
scarcely concealed unction of the eloquent ad- 
dress he made at the funeral of his mother, and 
notes that he " could hardly speak for passion 
and tears." Yet he records also that he " eat 
Roost Fowl " at the inn where he put up on his 
way back to Boston from Newbury. When 
his second wife died, he tells us that " Govr 
and Lt Govr had Scarvs and Rings," and then 
adds that he afterwards " eat a good Dish of 
Strawberries, part of Sister Stoddard's present." 
Fifty years later, at the period when John 
Rowe was Boston's chief diarist, funeral cere- 
monies were still among the foremost pageants 
of the town. Those of distinguished pubhc 
men drew a multitude of spectators. Reverend 
Doctor Mayhew was buried July 11, 1766, — a 
day when the thermometer stood at 90 degrees; 
yet besides a long procession of men and women 
on foot, there were fifty-seven carriages, of which 
sixteen were coaches and chariots, following 
the remains. A number of similarly elaborate 
funerals are described by Rowe, but the most 
elaborate of all, and the one with which we may 
as well conclude these citations, was that ac- 
companying the burial, September 12, 1767, 
of Jeremiah Gridley, father of the bar in Boston 
and master and guide in legal studies of the 
great John Adams. Gridley had been high in 
the Councils of the Masons and so was attended 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 461 

by one hundred and sixty-one men in full regalia. 
Besides which there were lawyers in their robes, 
gentlemen of the town, and a great many coaches, 
chariots, and chaises, with such a multitude of 
spectators as Rowe had " never before seen 
since he had been in New England." 

Funerals were recognized, too, in the inevita- 
ble needlework. Embroideries bearing funeral 
urns, drooping willows, and the like attained 
a great vogue towards the end of the eighteenth 
century, and soon no properly ambitious house- 
hold was without one. Just as gravestones 
now are designed with a view to accommodating 
the entire family roster, so these mourning 
pieces were prepared in advance, and an empty 
space left waiting for some one to die. The 
Tree of Life was a favorite design in these lugu- 
brious perpetrations. 

After the death of Washington, in 1799, each 
citizen of the United States, by the desire of 
Congress, wore upon his left arm for thirty days 
a simple band of crape. Loyal matrons, not 
to be outdone, provided themselves with mourn- 
ing cap-ribbons, — black bands on which were 
stamped in white letters the inscription that 
had been on Washington's coflfin-plate: 

"GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Departed this life on the 14th of December, 
1799, M. 68." 



462 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Washington was also mourned in wall-paper! 
Soon after the death of the Father of His Country, 
memorial paper in black and gray was placed 
on many walls throughout the country, and 
Miss Kate Sanborn, in her charming book on 
wall-papers, has given us a reproduction of a 
New England room thus decorated; the design 
used consisted chiefly of a big bare tomb marked 
" Sacred to Washington." 

In this same book^ I find the only reference that 
I have anywhere met to the lugubrious custom 
of setting aside one room in large houses for a 
" death room." The Knox house in Thomas- 
ton, Maine, had such a room over the eastern 
dining-room. The paper here was dark and 
gloomy, — white with black figures and a deep 
mourning frieze; and there was but one window. 
Benches were ranged stiffly around the sides of 
the room, and there were drawers filled with the 
necessities for preparing a body for burial. 
Here the dead lay until the funeral. And 
between obsequies the room was always closed 
up, empty, gruesome — waiting. 

When the Reverend Samuel Phillips of An- 
dover died, in 1771, the parish voted: " that 
at his funeral the bearers should have rings; 
that the ordained ministers who attend the 
funeral shall have gloves; that the ministers 
who preached gratis in Mr. Phillips' illness, 

1 " Old-Time Wail-Papers." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 463 

shall have gloves; that the parish will be at 
the charge of the funeral of the Rev. S. Phillips; 
and voted — to hea7' the bearers in their turn." 

Popular ministers naturally collected an ap- 
palling quantity of gloves as the years rolled 
by. Reverend Andrew Eliot, who in 1742 was 
ordained pastor of the new North Church in 
Boston, took it into his head to keep a careful 
account, in a Nathaniel Ames Almanac, of the 
various tributes which came to him from funerals, 
weddings, and christenings, and recorded, also, 
how many pairs of the gloves were kid, how many 
lamb's-wool and how many were long or women's 
gloves, intended for the parson's lady. Being 
of a thrifty disposition — or perhaps it was 
because he had eleven children to support — • 
Doctor Eliot eventually tried to turn his trophies 
into money and, by careful bartering, realized 
what would amount to about six hundred and 
forty dollars from the sale of three thousand 
pairs of gloves accumulated during his long 
lifetime! His own funeral must have put a 
great many more pairs into circulation. It 
occurred " September 15, 1778, when near four 
hundred couples and thirty-two carriages," 
Father Gannett writes on the fly-leaf of his 
almanac, "' followed his remains, up Cross Street, 
through Black Horse Lane, to Corpse Hill." 

Since every human experience was " im- 
proved " by the thrifty moralists of these old 



464 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

days, death, of course, had its place with the 
others. When an aged man, renowned for his 
many virtues, neared his end, the neighbors, 
young and old, would come in to see how a 
Christian could die. With awe they would 
observe the slow and laborious heaving of the 
departing one's chest, the vacancy of his fast- 
dimming eyes, and the spasmodic trembling 
of his time-worn hands. To us the idea of 
watching such a spectacle for perhaps hours at 
a time is very repugnant; but our pious fore- 
fathers did not so esteem it. Elaborate de- 
scriptions of impressive death-bed scenes were 
printed in many of the old almanacs and Sewall's 
diary abounded in such. Early advertisements 
of Romeo and Juliet make much of the fact 
that the funeral in the play will be given in 
painstaking and truthful detail ! 

Yet there was a strong feeling that too great 
advantage was frequently taken of funerals 
as an excuse for extravagance. This may be 
seen from the fact that, at a meeting held in 
Faneuil Hall, October 28, 1767, with Honorable 
James Otis as moderator, the following resolu- 
tion was passed: 

" And we further agree strictly to adhere to the 
late regulations respecting funerals, and will not 
use any gloves but what are manufactured here, 
nor procure any new garments, upon such occa- 
sions, but what shall be absolutely necessary." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 



465 



The reference here is doubtless to recent 
Massachusetts legislation forbidding the use 
of wine and rum at funerals. Some curb had 
obviously become advisable when an ordinary 
funeral, such as that of Thomas Salter, who 
died in 1714, occasioned such a bill as the fol- 
lowing: 

£ 

50 yds of Plush 10 

24 yds silk crepe 2 

9 3-8 black cloth 11 

10 yards fustian 1 

Wadding 

Stay tape and buckram 7 

13 yds. shalloon 2 

To making ye cloths 4 

Fans and girdles 

Gloves 10 

Hatte, shoes, and stockings 3 

50}/^ yds. lutestring 25 

Several rings 3 

Also buttons, silk cloggs 

2 yards of cypress 3 10 



s 


d 


8 


4 


16 





5 





6 


8 


6 


9 


7 


6 


12 





17 





10 





9 


6 


15 





5 





10 






To 33 gallons of wine @ 4s. 6d 7 

To 12 ozs. spice @ 18d 

To ^ cwt. sugar @ 7s 

To opening ye Tomb 

To ringing ye Bells 

To ye Pauls 

Doctor's and nurse's bills 10 

— the whole amounting to over £100 



18 
18 



^3 10 







466 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

However much people of different wealth and 
station might vary in the extravagance of their 
funerals, all, for a long time, received pretty 
nearly the same kind of recognition on their 
gravestones. Every third or fourth tablet was 
inscribed : 

" Thou traveller that passest by. 
As thou art now, so once was I; 
As I am now, thou soon shall be, 
Prepare for death and follow me." 

Diverting and ingenious epitaphs existed here 
and there, to be sure, as all of us who frequent 
old graveyards in New England very well know. 
Sometimes they were of domestic manufacture, 
— and sometimes they were not. On the Ben- 
nington tombstone of the Reverend Jedidiah 
Dewey, the first pastor in Vermont, may be 
found the following: 

" Let's talk of graves and worms and epitaphs; 
Make dust our paper, & with rainy eyes, 
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth." 

Some of my readers will recognize this as an ex- 
tract from Shakespeare's Richard the Second, 
and will be the more interested on that account 
in the Reverend Jedidiah, who differed from 
most parsons of his time in being an ardent 
admirer of the Bard of Avon, and who himself 
ordained that this should be his epitaph. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 467 

In an ancient graveyard in Vernon, Vermont, 
may be seen one of the many epitaphs written 
by Reverend Bunker Gay, a famous minister 
in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, across the river, 
and a person of quite remarkable talent and wit: 

MEMENTO MORI 

" Here lies cut down like unripe fruit 
A son of Mr. Amos Tute, 
And Mrs. Jemima Tute his Wife 
Call'd Jonathan of Whose frail Life 
The days all summ'd (how short the account) 
Scarcely to fourteen years Amount 
Born on the Twelfth of May Was He 
In Seventeen Hundred Sixty Three. 
To Death he fell a helpless Prey 
April the Five & Twentieth Day 
In Seventeen Hundred Seventy Seven 
Quitting this World we hope for Heaven 
But tho his Spirit's fled on high 
His body mould'ring here must lie 
Behold th' amazing alteration 
Effected by Inoculation 
The means improv'd his Life to Save 
Hurred him headlong to the Grave 
Full in the Bloom of Youth he fell 
Alass What human Tongue can tell 
The Mothers Grief her Anguish Show 
Or paint the Fathers heavier Woe 
Who now no nat'ral Offspring has 
His ample Fortune to possess. 
To fill his place Stand in his Stead 
Or bear his Name When he is dead 



468 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

So God ordain'd His Ways are Just 
The Empires crumble into Dust 
Life and the World Mere Bubbles are 
Set loose to these for Heaven prepare." 

On the Duxbury, Massachusetts, tombstone 
of Doctor Rufus Hathaway, who died in 1817, i3 
the following, which is really interesting because 
it fits the busy physician for whom it was written: 

*' Full many a journey, night and day, 
I've travelled weary on the way 
To heal the sick, but now I'm gone 
A journey never to return." 

In a graveyard of Randolph, Massachusetts, 
is another epitaph worthy of note : 

JONA. MANN 

Born Dec. 7, 1786, died April 23, 1873. 

His truthfulness no one doubted. He was 

very poor, consequently 

not respected. 

Again of autobiographic interest is the fol- 
lowing over a grave in a cemetery near Boston: 

JOSEPH SHELDON 

" I was a stout young man 
As you might see in ten 
And when I thought of this 
I took in hand my pen 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 469 

And wrote it down so plain 
That every one might see 
That I was cut down hke 
A blossom from a tree. 
The Lord rest my soul." 

One of the most touching epitaphs I have ever 
read is this of a slave: 

" God wills us free; man wills us slaves 

I will as God wills, Gods will be done 

Here lies the body of 

JOHN JACK 

A native of Africa, who died 

March 1773 aged about sixty years. 

Though born in a land of slavery he 

He was born free 

Though he lived in a land of liberty 

He lived a slave. 

Till by his honest (though stolen) labors 

He acquired the cause of slavery 

Which gave him freedom 

Though not long before 

Death, the grand tyrant 

Gave him his final emancipation 

And put him on a footing with kings. 

Though a slave to vice 

He practised those virtues 

Without which kings are but slaves." 

The excellent qualities of another good slave, 
who hved and died in Attleboro, Massachusetts, 
are celebrated thus; 



470 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" Here lies the best of slaves 
Now turning into dust, 
Caesar, the ^Ethiopian claims 
A place among the just. 

** His faithful soul has fled 

To realms of heavenly light 
And by the blood that Jesus shed 
Is changed from black to white. 

Jan. 15 he quitted the stage 
In the 77th year of his age. 
1781." 



The last two lines seem by another hand and 
remind one that even epitaphs are sometimes 
edited — and proofread. Witness the stone 
which, after setting forth the virtues of Mrs. 
Margaret, etc., wife of, etc., who died, etc., adds: 
" ErratuTKiy for Margaret read Martha." 

It was common for many families in old New 
England to have private burial-places near the 
house; in almost any long ride through the 
sparsely settled parts of Maine, New Hampshire, 
and Vermont, one may still pass little home 
cemeteries where two or three white stones 
shine out among the trees. Funeral processions 
which ended at these little graveyards would 
very likely have been a family party. One 
scarcely wonders that a funeral came to be a 
festival on such occasions. For the mourners, 
as well as the bearers, must then have been 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 471 

men and women whose opportunities for social 
intercourse were exceedingly limited, whose 
lives were barren of incident, to whom came no 
daily news, and whose journeys were few and far 
between. No wonder that they *' enjoyed a 
funeral " — as Sir Walter Scott says his father 
always did. 



472 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER XIV 

ST. pumpkin's day and other honored holi- 
days 

NEVER is the New England country more 
beautiful than in the golden days of late 
October, when the ripe corn is stacked 
high in the meadows, and piles of gleaming 
yellow pumpkins greet the eye at every turn. 
Small wonder our forefathers made almost a 
saint of old Pompion, and chanted joyfully: 

" For pottage and puddings and custards and 
pies 

Our pumpkins and parsnips are common sup- 
plies; 

We have pumpkin at morning and pumpkin at 
noon 

If it was not for pumpkin we should be undone." 

St. Pompion's Day, as Churchmen, in de- 
rision, called Thanksgiving Day, was logically 
the greatest day in the Puritan calendar. 

There are those who claim that Thanksgiving 
Day was the first holiday, chronologically, in 
the history of New England, even as it remains, 







rU.MPKI.X Tl.Mi:. 




THANKSGIVING PREPARATIONS. 
From a drawing by Arthur E. Berber. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 473 

after a passage of nearly three hundred years, 
our first hoHday affectionally. If we may 
beUeve the record contained in the family Bible 
of Wilham White, the Pilgrim, — a '' Breeches 
Bible " of 1588, — the first Thanksgiving Day 
ever observed on this continent was December 
20, 1620. In this venerable old volume may be 
found the following entry: *' William White 
Maried on ye 3d day of March 1620 to Susannah 
Tilly. Peregrine Whitee Born on Boared Ye 
Mayflower. . . . Sonne born to Susanna Whtee 
December 19th 1620 yt Six oclock morning. 
Next day we meet for prayer and thanksgiving." 
Thus New England's most honored of all home 
festivals is tied up, in narrative history, with a 
wedding-day and the birth of a first baby. 
It seems a great pity if we must sacrifice ^ so 
poetic and picturesque an origin for the most 
satisfying of New England festivals! 

To be sure, there is no mention here of roast 
turkey and cranberry sauce, apple, mince, or 
pumpkin pies. Feasting as a feature of Thanks- 
giving came in a year later — when the return 
of seed-time and harvest had made this pleasant 
indulgence possible. As chronicled in " Mourt's 
Relation", this celebration was as follows: 
" Our harvest being gotten in, our Governour 
sent foure men on fowling, that so we might 

^ See, however, Charles Francis Adams in Massachusetts His- 
torical Society Proceedings. Second Series, Vol. X, p. 254. 



474 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

after a more speciall manner rioyce together, 
after we had gathered the fruit of our labours; 
they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as 
with a little helpe beside, served the Company 
almost a weeke, at which time amongst other 
Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of 
the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst 
the rest their greatest King Massasoyt, with 
some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we 
entertained and feasted, and they went out and 
killed five Deere, which they brought to the 
Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, 
and upon the Captaine, and others. And 
although it be not alwayes so plentifuU, as it 
was at this time with us, yet by the goodnesse 
of God, we are so farre from want, that we often 
wish you partakers of our plentie." 

This has generally been termed the first 
autumnal thanksgiving in New England and 
many have assumed that it inaugurated the 
thanksgiving occasions of our forebears. But, 
as a matter of fact, this celebration was a harvest 
festival, pure and simple, just as the day after 
Peregrine White's birthday was a day of thanks- 
giving pure and simple. No religious service is 
spoken of in connection with the feast at which 
Massasoit " assisted ", and, save for the prayers 
before breakfast which, Bradford tells us, were 
always held at this period, it is not likely that 
any religious service was observed. The Pil- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 475 

grims did not mix sports and religious celebra- 
tions in the joyous fashion which characterized 
Church of England folk in Merrie England. 

The identification of Harvest Home with the 
thanksgiving service of the Pilgrims and Puri- 
tans dates from October 16, 1632. For, that 
year, there had been a very cold spring, fol- 
lowed by a hot and extremely dry summer. 
So passionately desirous were the colonists for 
rain that they could not refrain from tears as, 
in their religious assemblies, they called upon 
God to water their crops. And then came the 
answer to their prayers: " As they powred out 
water before the Lord so at that very instant 
the Lord showred down water on their Gardens 
and Fields, which with great industry they had 
planted." ^ Wherefore they celebrated God's 
goodness in a service of Thanksgiving. 

Still another picturesque and dramatic thanks- 
giving of these early days was that occasioned 
by the arrival, on November 2, 1631, of the ship 
Lyon, which bore the wife and family of Gov- 
ernor Winthrop. The military were summoned 
to arms to do honor to this " first lady of the 
land ", and for divers days there was feasting, 
" fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, geese, and 
partridges '* being blithely sacrificed to the 
occasion. Yet this was no more Thanksgiving, 
as we understand the day, than was that period 

^ Johnson's " Wonder- Working Providence," p. 58. 



476 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

of games and feasting during the Pilgrims' first 
golden autumn at Plymouth. Not for some 
years, indeed, was church thanksgiving bound 
up with a feast; and it was some years after 
that before the time chosen for the celebration 
came to be regularly that of Harvest Home. 

The first Thanksgiving proclamation among 
the Plymouth Colony Records to make mention 
of the harvest is that of 1668. The words are: 
" It has pleased God in some comfortable meas- 
ure to blesse us in the fruites of the earth." 
November 25 was the day appointed that year; 
clearly, then, this was a harvest thanksgiving. 

In Connecticut the Pilgrims' idea of a harvest 
thanksgiving became an accepted custom about 
1649. W. De Loss Love, Jr., Ph. D., who has 
written a very interesting and scholarly book on 
the " Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New 
England," ^ declares that the yearly festival, 
as now appointed by the several states, is un- 
doubtedly a Connecticut institution. For the 
practice of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 
which was in due time followed by New Hamp- 
shire, was to ordain thanksgiving days as a 
result of causes which made their exercise 
natural. Sewall, as late as 1685, may be found 
arguing that " 'twas not fit upon meer Generals 
(as the Mercies of the year) to Comand a 

^ To which I hereby acknowledge deep indebtedness. The book 
is pubHshed by Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 477 

Thanksgiving." None the less, the autumn 
thanksgiving was usual, even in this colony, 
after about 1660, though the annual and harvest 
features of the festival were overshadowed by 
insistence that greater spiritual blessing must 
necessarily flow from thanks given for some 
definite blessing than from any stated observ- 
ance of a recurring festival. 

In the time of the colonial governors there 
was a great deal of unhappiness in Massachusetts 
over some of the Thanksgiving proclamations. 
It had always been the custom to have the 
proclamation read by the Boston ministers on 
the two Sundays previous to Thanksgiving Day. 
Then those who objected to the wording of the 
proclamation could stay away from meeting — 
and did. Once, however. Governor Hutchinson 
fooled them all by persuading Reverend John 
Bacon, the new minister of the Old South Church, 
and Reverend Ebenezer Pemberton, the pastor 
of the New Brick Church, which the governor 
himself attended, to read, a week ahead of time, 
the proclamation of 1771, Avherein had been 
placed an " exceptionable clause." The people 
at the Old South Church stayed after service 
that day to talk over the proclamation — and 
the minister. Those of the New Brick walked 
out of meeting while the hateful proclamation 
was being read. They had no mind to thank 
God for the " continuance of civil and religious 



478 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

privileges " at a time when these privileges were 
being cruelly curtailed. Many of the min- 
isters would not read the proclamation at all on 
this occasion, and of those who did some modi- 
fied it by leaving out this " exceptionable clause ", 
others by introducing, as did the Reverend 
Joseph Sumner of Shrewsbury, the words " some 
of our." 

Samuel Sewall, who concerned himself with 
most things that happened in Boston during 
his lifetime, was greatly disturbed when the 
second service on Thanksgiving Day seemed in 
danger of being crowded out by the social 
features of the occasion. In 1721 we find him 
discussing the matter in the Council Chamber 
at Boston with Colonel Townsend and resenting 
it bitterly that the latter would not " move a 
jot towards having two ", though, on this par- 
ticular occasion, two services were held. Evi- 
dently the colonel was one of the increasing 
number of New Englanders who felt that 
proper justice could not be done to the Thanks- 
giving dinner when it was crowded in between 
a morning and an afternoon service. Yet it 
was not until after the Revolution, " the greatest 
force of the century for the development of 
our social life," ^ that the recreational side of 
Thanksgiving Day was given free rein and fire- 
side games were permitted in the home circle. 

1 W. De Loss Love, Jr., Ph.D. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 479 

Of such a Thanksgiving Day in a New England 
farmhouse the Quaker poet has said: 

"Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East 

and from West, 
From North and from South come the pilgrim 

and guest. 
When the gray-haired New-Englander sees 

round his board 
The old broken links of affection restored, 
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother 

once more. 
And the worn matron smiles where the girl 

smiled before, 
What moistens the lip and what brightens the 

eye? 
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin 

pier 



Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie was held 
to be unthinkable. Yet there could be no 
pumpkin pie without molasses; because Col- 
chester, Connecticut, did not receive its supply 
of molasses in season, it voted, in 1705, to put 
off its Thanksgiving from the first to the second 
Thursday of November! Pumpkin pies thus 
featured were usually baked in square tins, 
having only four corner pieces to each pie! 

Second only to the pumpkin pie in importance 
at such a thanksgiving feast as Whittier sings 
was the turkey which had been fattened for the 
occasion and which, when slowly roasted before 



480 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

the open fire and painstakingly basted from the 
dripping pan beneath, was fit to be the lord of 
any feast. Chicken there was, too, though al- 
ways in the form of chicken-pie, and vegetables 
of every sort, with raisins and citron, walnuts 
and popcorn, apples and cider galore. Surely 
Sewall could not have really wished joys such 
as these to be sacrificed to a second service in 
the meeting-house! 

Yet it is only in our own time that Thanks- 
giving has taken on more the character of a 
holiday than of the Sabbath in New England. 
As late as 1791 we find the law of Connecticut 
providing : 

" That on the Days appointed for public 
Fasting or Thanksgiving by Proclamation of 
the Governour of this State: all Persons resi- 
ding within this State, shall abstain from every 
kind of servile Labour, and Recreation, Works 
of Necessity and Mercy excepted; and any 
Person who shall be guilty of a Breach of this 
Act, being duly convicted thereof, shall be fined 
in a Sum not exceeding Two Dollars, nor less 
than One Dollar. Provided this Act shall not 
be construed to prevent public Posts and Stages 
from Travelling on said Days." 

In this piece of legislation, Thanksgiving, it 
is observed, is linked up with Fast Day. Until 
the last century two services were maintained 
in most New England communities on all days 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 481 

appointed for fasting, and until the time of the 
Revolution, most of the people abstained from 
food until after the second service; then, as 
evening drew on, they sat down to a simple 
repast of cold meat, bread, or " hasty pudding." 
Fast Day, however, usually came in the spring, 
just as Thanksgiving Day was an autumn 
festival, and *' one of the first signs of the 
changing sentiment as to the day," Doctor 
Love points out, " was the indulgence in visit- 
ing, walking abroad in the fields, inspection of 
barns and herds, discussion among neighbors 
of plans for the planting, much of which the 
spring season suggested." This was a long 
way from such days of fasting as Cotton Mather 
advocated, prayerful periods which had special 
reference, in most cases, to scourges or afflictions 
of various kinds. Thus a visitation of canker- 
worms was responsible for the Massachusetts 
Fast Day of June 22, 1665, and on November 
15, 1649, there was fasting in the Plymouth 
Colony by reason of an epidemic of " chin- 
cough & the pockes." An especially solemn 
fast day in Massachusetts was that of October 
30, 1727, a Monday when the Boston churches 
were crowded all day long by a terrified people 
whom an earthquake had aroused in the dead 
of night. Cotton Mather delivered on this occa- 
sion a sermon called " The Terror of the Lord." 
During the witchcraft persecutions. Cotton 



482 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Mather spent a large part of his time fasting 
and preaching and praying. He beheved in 
the efficacy of prayer and fasting in curing the 
afflicted. The chmax both of the witchcraft 
fasts and of the witchcraft persecutions came 
on January 15, 1696-1697, when Samuel Sewall 
put up his bill of confession and humbled him- 
self in public for having done wrong in accepting 
spectral evidence against the witches. Boston's 
history contains no finer example of manly 
self-abasement than this. 

I have said that Fast Day usually came in 
the spring, as Thanksgiving Day usually came 
in autumn. But this was not invariably the 
case; hence the final appointment of a Good 
Friday fast in Connecticut. Good churchman 
though he was, Washington, in 1795, appointed 
February 19 to be the national Thanksgiving 
Day. The date chanced to fall on the second 
day of Lent, and Connecticut Episcopalians 
refused to keep the feast; and they refused, 
also, to observe a fast day which fell in Easter 
week. Reverend Samuel Seabury, then the 
bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut 
and Rhode Island, justified the stand he and his 
people had taken on this matter by pointing 
out that it was exceedingly disagreeable to 
Episcopalians " to observe days of Thanks- 
giving in Lent . . . and equally disagreeable 
to be called on to observe days of Fasting in 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 483 

the season appointed by the church to praise 
God for the resurrection of Christ and the 
happy prospects of eternal hfe opened to us by 
him." Governor Huntington and Bishop Sea- 
bury were very good friends, however, and out 
of desire to avoid the recurrence of a difficult 
situation, the head of the state allowed Good 
Friday — the day which particularly recom- 
mends itself to Episcopalians as a fast day — 
to be his choice also for a fast. In subsequent 
years this pacificatory plan was followed by other 
governors, with the result that in Connecticut 
Good Friday has, for more than a century now, 
been a civil holiday as well as a religious festival. 

In Massachusetts, whose first annual Fast 
Day occurred April 19, 1694, Patriots' Day 
was substituted for the older holiday for the 
first time on April 19, 1894 — just two hundred 
years later. For about forty years there had 
been an agitation against the day, and Gov- 
ernor Russell in his Fast Day proclamation of 
the year before (the last ever issued in Massa- 
chusetts) so strongly urged the abandonment 
of a day which had " ceased to be devoted gener- 
ally to the purposes of its origin but is appropri- 
ated and used as a holiday for purposes at 
variance with its origin, its name and its solemn 
character " that the people very properly decided 
to continue the travesty no longer. 

Thanksgiving Day, however, seems to become 



484 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

constantly dearer to New Englanders and those 
of New England origin. Nor does the rehgious 
aspect of the day grow less important with the 
passing of the years. " All is hushed of busi- 
ness about me," wrote Wendell Phillips on 
Thanksgiving Day, 1841, to an English friend; 
*' the devout pass the morning at church; those 
who have wandered to other cities hurry back 
to worship to-day where their fathers knelt, 
and gather sons and grandsons, to the httlest 
prattler, under the roof -tree to — shall I break 
the picture? — cram as much turkey and plum- 
pudding as possible; a sort of compromise by 
Puritan love of good eating for denying itself 
that ' wicked papistrie ', Christmas." 

Christmas was not the only " papistrie " 
against which the Puritan sternly set his face 
and after all this lapse of time, Sewall's indig- 
nant blusterings over certain attempts to cele- 
brate Shrove Tuesday in Boston compel our 
attention. On this last day before Lent it 
was formerly the custom to go to confession — to 
shrive oneself ; after which all sorts of merriment 
began. Shrovetide in England corresponded to 
the Italian carnival season and, even after the 
Reformation had put an end to the confessional 
practice, the English clung to the habit of 
festivity. The eating of pancakes or doughnuts, 
and the sacrifice of cocks was part of the cere- 
monial of the season. 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 485 

" But hark, I hear the Pancake-bell 
And fritters make a gallant smell." 

But in the nostrils of Cotton Mather this 
" gallant smell " was nothing but a noisome 
stench. The eating of pancakes he construed 
as a relic of Mariolatry and the sacrifice of cocks 
as rank paganism. In his '' Advice from the 
Watch Tower ", he declares: *' It is to be hoped. 
The Shroves-Tuesday Vanities, of making Cakes 
to the Queen of Heaven, and Sacrificing Cocks 
to the Pagan Idol Tuisco; and other Super- 
stitions Condemned in the Reformed Churches; 
will find few Abetters, in a Countrey declar- 
ing for our Degree of Reformation. Should 
such things become usual among us, the great 
God would soon say with Indignation, How art 
thou turned Unto the Degenerate Plant of a 
Strange Vine unto me! " 

One of the few English holidays ungrudgingly 
observed by the Puritans was St. Valentine's 
Day. From the sixteenth century, in the mother 
country, the first person of the opposite sex 
seen on this morning was the observer's valen- 
tine. We read of Madam Pepys lying in bed 
for a long time on St. Valentine's Day, with her 
eyes tightly closed, lest she see one of the 
painters who were gilding her new mantelpiece, 
and be forced to have him for her valentine. 
In the New World, we find Governor Win- 



486 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

throp writing to his wife about " challenging a 
valentine," and Anna Green Winslow record- 
ing in her diary (February 14, 1772) : " Valen- 
tine day. My valentine was an old country 
plow-joger." Which undoubtedly means that 
the first person little Anna chanced to see that 
morning was " an old country plow-joger." 

Another old-world anniversary, which died 
very hard, was " Powder-Plot Day," November 
5, on which occasion was celebrated the execu- 
tion of Guy Fawkes, following his treasonable 
plan (in 1605) to blow up the House of Parlia- 
ment out of revenge for the edict banishing the 
priests from England. Judge Sewall refers to 
one of these celebrations (in 1685) as if it were 
a regular occurrence: 

"Mr. Allin preached, Nov. 5, 1685 — fin- 
ished his Text 1 Jn. I. 9. mentioned not a word 
in Prayer or Preaching that I took notice of 
with respect to Gun-Powder Treason. . . . Al- 
though it rained hard, yet there was a Bonfire 
made on the Comon, about 50 attended it. 
Friday night (November 6) being fair, about two 
hundred hallowed about a Fire on the Coinon." 

In the Weekly Journal of November 11, 1735, 
we find the following account of the anniversary 
as it was observed that year in Boston: 

" On Wednesday last being the 5th of Novem- 
ber, the Guns were fired at Castle William, in 
Commemoration of the happy and remarkable 



I 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 487 

Deliverance of our Nation from Popery and 
Slavery, by the Discovery of the Gun Powder 
Plot in the year 1G05; and in the Evening there 
were Bonfires, and other Rejoycings." 

The original manner of celebrating this day 
in New England was to carry in a procession 
the effigies of the pope and the devil and at 
the end of the march to burn these symbols, 
which to the Puritan were alike hateful. But 
as the eighteenth century advanced, the cele- 
brations became so boisterous as to cause great 
anxiety to the authorities. In Boston there 
were now rival processions, one from the North 
End and one from the South End and, though 
each carried images of the pope and the devil as 
before, these were burned only as the climax of a 
skirmish between the opposing factions. John 
Rowe in his diary mentions a fatality which 
happened to a child as an outcome of the skir- 
mish in 1764, an accident to which we owe the 
more seemly celebrations for the years imme- 
diately ensuing. 

As the time of the Revolution approached, 
images of unpopular officials, hke Governor 
Hutchinson and General Gage, were added on 
Plot Day to those of the pope and the devil and 
burned with gusto, as the evening drew to a close. 
The almanacs made it part of their business to 
keep the zest for this festival alive by publish- 
ing, each recurring November 5, such lines as: 



488 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" Gun Powder Plot 
We ha'n't forgot.'* 

and so well did the tradition of the day endure 
that Plot Night was being celebrated in Ports- 
mouth, New Hampshire, as late as 1892! Even 
at the present time, something of carnival nature 
is done, on the evening of November fifth, in 
this picturesque old town by the sea, though 
the boys who blow horns and carry about 
pumpkin-lanterns have so little knowledge of 
what they are commemorating that they call 
their festival Pork Night! 

In most of the large New England towns, as 
well as in Boston, the observance of this day 
died very hard. In the diaries of the period 
may be found many casual references to it. 
The Reverend Samuel Deane of Portland writes 
in his journal: " 1770 November 5 Several 
popes and devils tonight "; " 1771 November 5 
No popes nor devils here tonight at my house." 
The Reverend Ezra Stiles speaks of the custom 
at Newport in 1771, saying: " Powder Plot, — - 
Pope etc carried about " ; and again on November 
5, 1774, he says: " This Afternoon three popes 
&ct paraded tho' the streets, & in the Evening 
they were consumed in a Bonfire as usual — 
among others were Ld. North, Gov. Hutchinson 
& Gen. Gage." John Adams, attending court 
at Salem on Wednesday, November 5, 1766, says: 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 489 

*' Spent the evening at Mr. Pynchon's, with 
Farnham, Sewall, Sargeant, Col. Saltonstall 
&ct. very agreeably. Punch, wine, bread and 
cheese, apples, pipes, tobacco and Popes and 
bonfires this evening at Salem, and a swarm of 
tumultuous people attending." 

Coffin, in his valuable " History of Newbury ", 
gives a description of a Plot Day observance 
which is worth quoting because it is typical 
of such celebrations in all New England towns 
at this period, as well as because it marks the 
passing of the custom: 

" The last public celebration of Pope Day 
occurred in 1775 and went off with a great 
flourish. In the day time companies of little 
boys might be seen, in various parts of the town, 
with their little popes, dressed up in the most 
grotesque and fantastic manner, which they 
carried about, some on boards and some on 
little carriages, for their own and others' amuse- 
ment. But the great exhibition was reserved 
for the night, in which young men as well as 
boys participated. They first constructed a 
huge vehicle, varying, at times, from twenty 
to forty feet long, eight or ten wide and five 
or six high, from the lower to the upper platform, 
on the front of which they erected a paper lan- 
tern, capacious enough to hold, in addition to 
the lights, five or six persons. Behind that, 
as large as life sat the mimic pope, and several 



490 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

other personages, monks, friars and so forth. 
Last but not least, stood an image of what was 
designed to be a representation of old Nick 
himself, furnished with a pair of huge horns, 
holding in his hand a pitchfork and otherwise 
accoutred, with all the frightful ugliness that 
their ingenuity could devise. Their next step, I 

after they had mounted their ponderous vehicle 
on four wheels, chosen their officers, captain, 
first and second lieutenant, purser, and so 
forth, placed a boy under the platform to elevate 
and move round at proper intervals the movable 
head of the pope, and attached ropes to the 
front part of the machine, was, to take up 
their line of march through the principal streets 
of the town. Sometimes, in addition to the 
images of the pope and his company, there 
might be found, on the same platform, half a 
dozen dancers, and a fiddler, whose 

" ' Hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 
Put life and mettle in their heels,' 

together with a large crowd, who made up a long 
procession. Their custom was to call at the 
principal houses in various parts of the town, 
ring their bells, cause the pope to elevate his 
head, and look round upon the audience, and 
repeat the following lines: 

" ' The fifth of November 
As you well remember, 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 491 

Was gunpowder treason and plot; 

I know no reason why the gunpowder treason 

Should ever be forgot.' " 

Yet, a very good reason for allowing Pope Day 
to languish and the treason it celebrated to be 
" forgot " was found in the fact that the French, 
who helped us greatly during the Revolution, did 
not enjoy the reflections upon the Church of 
Rome and its pope, which were inseparable 
from the day as thus observed. 

Newport, Rhode Island, long cherished one 
very picturesque custom, which had been brought 
over from England, — that of watching the 
sun *' rise out of the ocean " on Easter morn- 
ing. On this anniversary the people of the town 
crowded the beach to see if the sun would 
"dance" as it came up; for if it "danced", 
the year was sure to be a lucky one for those 
who watched. Accordingly, there was great 
desire that the orb of day might come up bright 
and clear. When this had been accomplished, 
the people on the shore joyously clapped their 
hands and sang the doxology. Mrs. John King 
Van Rensselaer, in whose delightful book, " New- 
port, Our Social Capital," I find a record of this 
curious old custom, comments that the observ- 
ance must have been brought from England by 
the first settlers, who, when they lived in their 
native land, were wont to " watch for the rising 
of the Easter sun." Sir John Suckling says: — 



492 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

" But oh, she dances in such a way, 
No sun upon an Easter day 
Is half so fine a sight." 

Trick-playing on April Fool's Day also sur- 
vived in New England, though Judge Sewall 
repeatedly inveighs against it. On April 1, 
1719, he wrote: 

" In the morning I dehorted Sam Hirst and 
Grindell Rawson from playing Idle tricks be- 
cause 'twas the first of April: They were the 
greatest fools that did so. N. E. men came 
hither to avoid anniversary days, the keeping 
of them such as 25th of Deer. How displeasing 
must it be to God the giver of our Time to keep 
anniversary days to play the fool with ourselves 
and others." Ten years earlier the judge had 
written to a Boston schoolmaster requesting him 
to " insinuate into the Scholars the Defiling 
and Provoking nature of such a Foolish Prac- 
tice " as playing tricks on April first. 

Days which might be " improved ", either by 
prayer or by poetizing, were much more to 
Sewall's taste. He was no kill-joy but he liked 
to have a substantial and non-papistical reason 
for dedicating perfectly good time to the pur- 
suit of pleasure. The birth of a baby — or 
of a century — impressed him as such a reason. 
So in honor of the former he repeatedly brewed 
" groaning beer "; and when a chance came to 
him to celebrate the latter he wrote the fol- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 493 

lowing verses and had a crier recite them through 
Boston's streets: 

" Once more! Our God, vouchsafe to Shine: 
Tame Thou the Rigour of our Chme. 
Make haste with thy Impartial Light, 
And terminate this long dark Night. 

" Let the transplanted English Vine 
Spread further still : still call it Thine : 
Prune it with Skill: for yield it can 
More Fruit to Thee the Husbandman. 

" Give the poor Indians Eyes to see 
The Light of Life: and set them free; 
That they Religion may profess, 
Denying all Ungodliness. 

" From hard'ned Jews the Vail remove; 
Let them their Martyr'd Jesus love; 
And Homage unto Him afford, 
Because He is their Rightfull Lord. 

" So false Religion shall decay, 
And Darkness fly before bright Day; 
So Men shall God in Christ adore; 
And worship Idols vain, no more. 

" So Asia with Africa, 
Europa with America: 
All Four, in Consort join'd, shall Sing 
New Songs of Praise to Christ our King." 



494 SOCIAL LIFE IN 



CHAPTER XV 

CHRISTI^IAS UNDER THE BAN 

THE first Christmas Day in the history 
of New England is thus described by 
Governor WilHam Bradford in his famous 
Log-Book: 

" The day called Christmas Day ye Govr cal'd 
them out to worke (as was used) but ye moste 
of this new company excused themselves, and 
saide yt went against their consciences to work 
on yt Day. So ye Govr tould them that if 
they made it mater of conscience, he would 
spare them till they were better informed. So 
he led away ye rest and left them; but when 
they came home at noon from their work he 
found them in ye street at play openly, some 
pitching ye bar, and some at stoolball and such 
like sports. So he went to them and took away 
their implements and tould them it was against 
his conscience that they should play and others 
work." Most modern writers, quoting Brad- 
ford on Christmas, stop at this point, the better 
to bring out that rare thing, a Puritan joke. 
But to understand the earlv attitude toward 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 495 

Christmas, it is necessary to add two more 
sentences from the Log-Book. " If they made 
the keeping of it matter of devotion, let them 
keep their houses, but ther should be no game- 
ing or revelling in ye streets. Since which time 
nothing hath been attempted that way, at least 
openly.'* The italics are mine; they serve, I 
think, to emphasize the fact that Bradford and 
his men were not at all averse to the spirit of 
Christmas, — only to the abuses of the festival 
as they had known them in England. 

Bradford's attitude towards Christmas might 
be compared to that of Martin Luther. In the 
case of this and every other relic of " wicked 
papistrie ", Luther's protest was not against the 
spirit but the prostitution of that spirit. In 
which connection it were well for us to recall 
that one of the most significant and character- 
istic pictures of Luther represents him sitting, 
on Christmas Eve, in his family circle, with his 
wife at his side, and a lighted Christmas tree 
before him. The Father of the Reformation is 
playing the lute and, amidst fruit and bread, 
can be descried, on the table, a huge tankard 
filled with ale! Not Luther, then, but Calvin, 
with whom Cotton Mather was wont to sweeten 
his mouth before going to bed, put Christmas 
under the ban. 

Those who honored Calvin more than they 
honored Christ were able, being a majority, to 



496 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

impose their will upon early New England in 
the matter of keeping or failing to keep Christ- 
mas. In 1659 the General Court of Massachu- 
setts forbade, under a penalty of five shillings 
for each offense, the observation of " any such 
day as Christmas or the like, either by for- 
bearing of labour, feasting, or any other way." 
Towards the end of the century, however, when 
the population of the towns had become less 
homogeneous and the number of Church of 
England men had greatly increased, this law 
became so difficult to enforce that in 1681 it 
was repealed. From this time on, Christmas 
began to reassert itself, to the immense chagrin 
of Samuel Sewall, who in his diary chronicles 
for several successive years that carts come to 
town on Christmas Day and that the shops are 
open as usual. " Some, somehow, observe the 
day, but are vexed, I believe, that the Body 
of the People profane it; and blessed be God! 
no Authority yet to compell them to keep it." 

The next year the shops and the carts give 
Sewall great pleasure again, although Governor 
Andros does go to the Episcopal service with a 
redcoat on his right and a captain on his left. 
Eleven years later, in 1697, on the same day: 
" Joseph tells me that though most of the Boys 
went to the Church, yet he went not." In 1705 
and 1706, to the judge's relief, enter the carts 
once more on their way to open shops. But 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 497 

in 1714 Christmas fell on Saturday, and because 
of its observance at the church, the judge, on 
the following day, — the Sabbath, — goes to 
meeting and sits at the Lord's table with Mr. 
John Webb, that he may " put respect upon 
that affronted despised Lord's day. For the 
Church of England had the Lord's supper 
yesterday, the last day of the week, but will 
not have it to-day, the day that the Lord has 
made." Some New Englanders, it seems, now 
felt free to observe in their own way " the sea- 
son wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated." 
What Sewall quite failed to realize, of course, 
was that a man might be just as sincere a Chris- 
tian and just as good a Puritan as he was and 
still desire to celebrate Christmas. George 
Wither went to prison for his Puritanism; yet 
it was Wither who wrote : 

" So now is come our joyful'st feast, 

Let every man be jolly; 
Each room with ivy leaves is drest. 

And every post with holly. 
Though some churls at our mirth repine, 
Round your foreheads garlands twine, 
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine. 

And let us all be merry. 

'* Now all our neighbors' chimneys smoke. 
And Christmas blocks are burning; 
Their ovens they with baked-meats choke. 
And all their spits are turning. 



498 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

Without the door let sorrow he; 
And if for cold it hap to die, 
We'll bury it in Christmas pie, 
And evermore be merry." 

That Sewall was no " churl " but a jolly soul 
with infinite capacity for social enjoyment we 
have repeatedly seen; nothing could have 
appealed to him more than " Christmas pie." 
But Christmas, in his mind, was bound up with 
the Established Church; and for the Estab- 
lished Church he had no manner of use. More- 
over, and this is the crux of the matter, Christ- 
mas as a time of boisterous revelry had almost 
buried, in England, Christmas as the celebration 
of the Saviour's birth. To sympathize with 
Sewall and Cotton Mather in their opposition 
to the introduction of a Yuletide spirit into New 
England the reader needs to return briefly to 
a typical Christmas in old England at this 
period and look in on a roistering crowd cele- 
brating Christmas Eve in a Fleet Street inn.^ 

Because it is Christmas time and high carnival, 
all sorts of iniquities are now given full rein. 
Wandering minstrels sing their ribald songs 
unrebuked ; revellers bear in the Yule log, about 
which they will soon dance with quite as much 
abandon as did their Saxon ancestors; and on 
the gambling table in the middle of the room 

^ " Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England." 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 499 

stands a wassail bowl which will have to be 
refilled a score of times as the night wears on 
towards the blessed Christmas morn. In the 
carols that choristers outside will sing the theme 
is not praise of Christ the Saviour, but baccha- 
nalian salutation to Christ the Lord of Misrule: 

" The darling of the world is come 
And fit it is we find a roome 
To welcome him. The nobler part 
Of all the house here is the heart, 
Which we will give him; and bequeath 
This hollie and this ivie wreath 
To do him honour, who's our King, 
And Lord of all this revelling." 

But even this would not have been so bad if, 
the next day, there had been real reverence for 
the true meaning of Christmas. Yet right in 
the midst of the service at a near-by church this 
sort of thing might happen, according to a 
chronicler^ of the time: *' Then marche this 
heathen company towards the church and 
churchyard, their pipers piping, drummers thun- 
dering, their bells jyngling, their hobby horses 
and other monsters skirmishing amongst the 
crowd, and in this sort they goe into the church, 
(though the minister bee at prayer or preaching,) 
dancing and swinging their handkerchiefs over 

1 " Anatomie of Abuses," Philip Stubs; Brand's Popular An- 
tiquities, pp. 501-503. 



500 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

their heads . . . with such a confused noise 
that no man can hear his own voice. Then 
the foohsh people, they look, they stare, they 
laugh, they fleer, and mount upon forms and 
pews to see these goodly pageants solemnized 
in this sort. Then after this about the church 
they go again and again, and so forth into the 
churchyard, where they have commonly their 
banquetting tables set up." 

Most of us think of the Christmas revels of 
old England as the beautiful thing Washington 
Irving found them. We do not realize that, at 
the time New England was settled, the Amen of 
a Christmas Day Nunc dimittis: " Lord, now 
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, ac- 
cording to thy word, for mine eyes have seen 
thy salvation," was quite as likely as not 
to be: 

" Yule, yule, yule. 
Three puddings in a pule 
Crack nouts and cry yule." 

The Plymouth Pilgrims, Church of England 
folk at heart, went no further in their condemna- 
tion of Christmas than to let the day pass 
without observing it. ^In Connecticut, \ on the 
other hand, /there was a law, Peters tells us, 
Tlorbidding the reading of Common Prayer, 
keeping Christmas or saints' days, making 
minced pies, dancing, playing cards, or per- 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 501 

forming on any instrument of music, except 
the drum, trumpet and Jew's-harp. Yet Christ- 
mas in Connecticut came into its own sooner than 
in many other parts of New England, owing, 
very largely, to the influence of Bishop Seabury. 
*' No member of a church household now 
willingly remained away from the special serv- 
ice, which, with the Sacrament, gave the day 
its highest character," writes Mrs. Shelton,^ 
" and the Christmas-eve service was of interest 
to many outside the flock. The dressing of 
evergreens and the windows lighted by rows 
of candles made an attraction irresistible to 
the meeting-house children, who were allowed 
to attend this one church service of the year." 

To follow in the diary of John Rowe, the 
Boston merchant, entries concerning successive 
Christmasses just before and during the Revo- 
lution throws considerable light on the change 
that was taking place, even in Boston, towards 
this festival. Rowe was an Episcopalian and 
so wrote: 

"Dec. 25, 1764. Christmas Day. Went 
to Church. Mr Walter read prayers & Mr. 
Hooper preached from 1st Chap, of the Gospel 
of St. John & 17th Verse. I was much pleased 
with the Discourse. A great number of people 
at Church. Mr. Hooper sent the Box to me to 
collect for the poor." The records for 1765 
1 In " The Salt-Box House." 



502 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

are lost and on Christmas Day 1766 Mr. Rowe 
put nothing in his diary. Perhaps the ample 
home dinner that always followed his attend- 
ance at church was too much for him. The 
entry for 1767 is: " Dec. 25. Christmas Day — 
very cold. I went to church this forenoon. 
Mr. Walter read prayers & preached a very 
clever sermon from 2d Chap. St. Luke & 32d 
verse. I applaud Mr. Walter's Behavior very 
much." Dec. 25, 1768: " Sunday & Christmas 
Day — I dined at home with ..." x\gain 
no entry in 1769, while on Christmas Day, 1770, 
nothing is said about either church or sermon, 
though mention is made of several people 
who dined with Mr. Rowe at home and " staid 
& spent the afternoon & evening & wee were 
very CheerfuU." 

" Dec. 25, 1771. Christmas Day. excessive 
cold weather, the ink freezing — I went to 
Church this forenoon. We gathered £318.6/ 
old tenor which was more than I expected being 
very Cold & few People at Church. 

" Dec. 25, 1772. Christmas Day. Mr. Wal- 
ter Read Prayers & preached a sensible meta- 
physical sermon for Christmas from 3rd Chap. 
Timothy 16th Verse We collected abt four 
hundred pounds Old Tendr for the Poor. 

" Dec. 25, 1773. Christmas Day. I went to 
Church this morning. Mr. Walter read prayers & 
preached a most excellent sermon. We collected 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 503 

in old tenor 400-8/ for the Benefit of the 
Poor." 

In 1774 no entry of any kind for Christmas 
Day; in 1775 mention of a *' very Good Ser- 
mon *' preached by Mr. Parker while Mr. Wal- 
ter read prayers. The diary covering Decem- 
ber is missing for 1776 and 1777, — and the 
rather depressed entry for Christmas, 1779, is 
that " the congregation is thin and the day the 
coldest that had been known for forty years." 
Mr. Rowe was a Loyalist, and things had not 
been coming his way of late. 

A hospitable attitude towards Christmas was 
to be noted here and there, even among the 
party of Dissent, before the strain of the Revo- 
lution set in. In the journal of Reverend 
Manasseh Cutler, for instance, I find: 
^ " Dec. 24, 1765 Tuesday, Set out for Boston 
in the carriage with Miss Polly Balch; very 
cold. Spent the evening at Capt. Hart's. 
Lodged at Mr. Williams' It being Christmas 
eve the bells in Christ Church were rung, chimes 
played tunes etc. Christ Church is a large 
brick building, situated at the north end, and 
is the first church founded in the town. 
^" Dec. 25, Wed. Christmas. Went to church 
at King's Chapel, where was a very gay and 
briUiant assembly. Several interv^als, in read- 
ing service, made for singing anthems, which 
were performed extremely well.l Service was 



504 SOCIAL LIFE IN 

read by Parson Caner, and a sermon preached 
. . . Then the sacrament was administered 
(which I did not tarry to see). Dined at Mr. 
WilHams'. A very handsome dinner. , In the 
afternoon service was read, and anthems sung, 
but no sermon. \ This church is built of stone, 
is very beautifully adorned with carved pillars, 
several images, etc. Here is a very good set 
of organs but no bells, as the steeple is not 
erected. This is the most grand church in 
town, whefe His Excellency is obliged to at- 
tend. This evening we came to Roxbury and 
spent it very agreeably at INIr. Increase Sum- 
ner's, and lodged at Mr. Samuel Sumner's. 

*' Dec. 26, Thurs. This morning began to 
snow. At 10 o'clock we set out for the city 
of Tiot (Indian name of Dedham), and came 
to an anchor at Dr. Ames' where we dined, 
drank tea, and spent a very agreeable evening. 
We came home at 10 o'clock. As it had cleared 
up, and was a bright moonlight night, and not 
cold, we had a very pleasant ride. So much 
for Christmas." 

In 1773 we find Doctor Cutler recording '' a 
warm pleasant Christmas ", which he spent 
attending services in near-by Salem, and on the 
following day, Sunday, he himself " preached 
a Christmas sermon! " But after this no more 
mention of Christmas in the diary until the 
Revolution had become an old story. 




K V- 



2; - 

^9 



m 5 
Kg 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 505 

That clever child, Anna Green Winslow, gibes 
at Christmas in her diary, in the year 1771. 
On December 24, we find her writing, " To- 
morrow will be a holiday, so the pope and his 
associates have ordained." Anna, not being 
a church child, naturally had no gifts on Christ- 
mas Day. ^ Not until the nineteenth century 
had run half its course, indeed, was Christmas 
celebrated in New England by general merri- 
ment and the universal exchange of gifts.! We 
find Wendell Phillips, referring gently, as late 
as 1841, to " that wicked Papistrie, Christmas "; 
he, like the Presbyterian child in " Poganuc 
People ", had been denied in his boyhood the 
sweet joys of this great festival. So, of course, 
had Mrs. Stowe; for which reason she writes 
with especial sympathy of Dolly, " who did not 
know what Christmas was, did not know what 
the chancel was and had never seen anything 
' dressed with pine '," Dolly, who slipped out 
of her warm bed on Christmas Eve and, all by 
herself, attended a " 'Piscopal " service, — thus 
precipitating upon the community of which she 
was a part two powerful controversial sermons 
concerning the keeping of Christmas. 

To-day, happily, everybody keeps Christmas. 
Episcopalians and Unitarians, Catholics and 
•Jews, apparently enjoy alike the holly-wreaths 
and mistletoe boughs, the gathering of kindred, 
good cheer, merriment, and children's games 



506 SOCIAL LIFE 

for which the day certainly stands on the sur- 
face, however much of deeper meaning it also 
contains for those who then celebrate the 
Birthday of Christ. - 

1 



THE END 



INDEX 



Abbott, Jacob, 107. 

Ablutions, 259, 260. 

Adams, Abigail, 197, 356. 

Adams, Brooks, 136. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 199, 

288, 473. 
Adams, John, 113, 135, 136, 137, 

261, 264, 265, 326, 408, 460, 

488. 
Adams, John Quincy, 288, 325, 

336, 447. 
Adams, Mrs. Persis, 296, 297. 
Adams, Samuel, 105, 330. 
Adams, Rev. William, 290, 291. 
Adams, Rev. Zabdiel, 162. 
Alexander, Cosmo, 327. 
Alexander, Francis, 333, 334. 
Allen, Ethan, 194, 195. 
Allen, Jolley, 282. 
Allen, Rev. William, 106, 108. 
Allston, Washington, 332. 
Almanacs, 370-372, 385, 424, 

426. 
Ames, Joseph, 336. 
Ames, Dr. Nathaniel, 371. 
Amher-st College, 101. 
Amory, Mrs. M. B., 323. 
Amory, R. G., 342. 
Amory, Thomas, 230. 
Amusements, 417-452. 
Andover, Mass., 178, 364, 462. 
Andr^, Maj. John, 329. 
Andrews, John, 231. 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 171, 173, 

174, 458, 496. 
Appleton, Rev. Jesse, 105, 106. 
Appleton, Samuel, 32. 
April Fool's Day, 492. 
Apthorp, Nathaniel, 230. 
Apthorp, Thomas, 230. 
Attleboro, Mass., 179, 405, 469. 



Atwater, Rev. Jeremiah, 110. 
Averill, Asa, 220. 

Bacon, Rev. John, 308, 477. 
Baker, HoUister, 120, 121, 122, 

123, 124. 
Ball, Dr., 125, 126. 
Bancroft, George, 64. 
Barlow, Joel, 80, 81, 425, 426. 
Barnard, Rev. John, 367. 
" Bay Psalm-Book," 152-157, 

356. 
Beers, Henry A., 82. 
Bell, Thomas, 6. 
Bellingham, Gov. Richard, 211, 

212. 
Bennington, Vt., 194, 466. 
Berkeley, Bishop, 77, 92, 191, 

319, 353. 
Berkelev, Mass., 191. 
Bettis, Peter, 420, 421, 422. 
Beverly, Mass., 105, 267. 
Bible-reading, 351. 
Billings, William, 158. 
Blackburn, Jonathan B., 272, 

321. 
Blacksmiths, 141, 142. 
Blackstone, William, 239. 
" Boiled dinner," 260. 
Bolton, C. K., 205. 
Bolton, Mrs. C K., vi, 336, 

337, 340. 
Books, 59, 77, 128, 152, 235, 

350-377. 
Booksellers, 140. 
Boston, Mass., 396-399, 405, 

406, 407, 408, 455, 503, 504. 
Bowdoin, Gov. James, 104, 106, 

321. 
Bowdoin, Hon. James, 104, 105, 

106. 



508 



INDEX 



Bowdoin College, 46, 104-109, 

321. 
Bowen, Daniel, 342. 
Bowen, Deacon Ephraim, 266. 
Bowne, Eliza Southgate, 272. 
Boylston, Mrs. Thomas, 322. 
Boylston, Dr. Zabdiel, 115, 129. 
Boylston, Mass., 120. 
Bradford, Gov. William, 474, 

494, 495. 
Bradstreet, Anne, 356, 363-365. 
Bradstreet, Simon, 363, 459. 
Braintree, Mass., 135, 199. 
Branch, Anna Hempstead, 299. 
Brattle, Thomas, 149. 
Breck, Rev. Robert, 120, 294. 
Breck, Samuel, 277, 306. 
Bridge, Horatio, 108. 
Brigham, Elijah, 418. 
Brigham, Dr. Samuel, 120. 
Brookfield, Mass., 120, 395. 
Brooks, Phillips, 7. 
Brown, Chadd, 86. 
Brown, John, 87, 404, 438, 444. 
Brown, Nicholas, 86, 150, 151, 

444. 
Brown, William Henry, 345. 
Brown University, 46, 82-92, 

128, 229, 267. 
Browne, Rev. Arthur, 213, 287, 

353, 354. 
Brunswick, Maine, 105. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 356, 

377. 
Buckingham, Joseph T., 366. 
Buel, David, 131. 
Bundling, 196-201. 
Bunker Hill, 190, 329. 
Burnet, Gov. William, 245. 
Buxton, Dr. Samuel, 456. 
Byles, Dr. Mather, 158. 

Campbell, Jacob, 229. 
Caner, Rev. Henry, 504. 
Carver, Mass., 251. 
Cattanach, Miss H. C, 342. 
Charlestown, Mass., 7. 
Chase, Salmon P., 97. 
Chauncey, Charles. 54, 115. 
Checkley, Rev. John, 353-356. 
Checkly, Samuel, 164, 165, 166. 



Cheever, Ezekiel, 6, 7. 
Cheverus, Bishop, 342. 
Choate, Rufus, 97. 
Christening customs, 180, 181. 
Christmas, 484, 494-506. 
Churches, 145-195. 
Clarke, John, 128. 
Clarke, Richard, 323. 
Cleaveland, Parker, 107. 
Codfish, 261. 
Coffin, Joshua, 489. 
Colchester, Conn., 479. 
Concord, Mass., 20. 
Concord, N. H., 412, 454. 
Conway, Mass., 334. 
Cook, Tom, 297, 298. 
Cooper, Jedidiah, 162. 
Cooper, Rebecca, 216. 
Copley, John Singleton, 213, 272, 

310, 321-326. 
Corwin, Jonathan, 273, 274, 275. 
Cotton, Rev. John, 5, 436. 
Courting Customs, 196, 199, 201. 
Crafts, Elizabeth, 203. 
Craigie, Andrew, 406. 
Crevecoeur, Hector Saint-Jean 

de, 352. 
Crowninshield, Edward A., 373, 

374. 
Cushing, Caleb, 64. 
Cutler, Dr. Manasseh, 289, 503, 

504. 
Cutler, Rev. Timothy, 77, 288. 

Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mand6, 

346, 347. 
Daguerreotypes, 336, 346-349. 
Dancing, 402, 403, 417, 436- 

442. 
Dankers, Jasper, 56. 
Darling, E., 228. 
Dartmouth, Earl of, 93. 
Dartmouth College, 46, 92-97, 

105, 130. 
Davenport, John, 286. 
Davis, Mrs. D. T., 348. 
Davis, Horace, 123. 
Day, Jeremiah, 81. 
Daye, Stephen, 371. 
Deane, Rev. Samuel, 428, 488. 
Dedham, Mass., 9, 10, 11, 12, 



INDEX 



509 



146, 199, 290, 371, 379, 399, 

405 504. 
Deerfield, Mass., 44, 143, 192. 
Delemater, Dr. John, 106. 
Derby, Mrs. Richard, 333. 
Dewey, Rev. Jedidiah, 194, 466. 
Diaries, 288-318. 
Dickinson, Rebecca, 301, 302, 

303. 
Dighton, Mass., 178. 
Doohttle, Joel, 110. 
Dorchester, Mass., 8, 338. 
Douglass, David, 444. 
Douglass, Dr. William, 117, 

118. 
Downing, Madam, 216. 
Doyle, William M. S., 342. 
Drinking, 264. 
Dudley, Gov. Joseph, 58. 
Dudley, Paul, 53, 294. 
Dunster, Rev. Henry, 50, 51, 

52, 152. 
Dunton, John, 209. 
Durfee, Rev. Calvin, 103. 
Duxbury, Mass., 468. 
Dwight, Timothy, 79, 80, 81, 

95, 109, 110, 413, 415. 

Earle, Alice Morse, vi, 170, 208, 

279, 303, 350. 
Earle, Dr. John, 447. 
East Greenwich, R. I., 228. 
Eaton, Rev. Isaac, 83. 
Eaton, Rev. Nathaniel, 49, 50. 
Eaton, Gov. Theophilus, 242, 

285. 
Edouart, Auguste, 343, 344, 

345. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 28, 181, 

200, 372, 373. 
Edwards, Rev. Morgan, 87. 
Edwards, Rev. Timothy, 183. 
Eliot, Rev. Andrew, 80, 463. 
Eliot, John, 6, 12, 13, 152, 271. 
Eliot, Dr. John, 114. 
Eliot, John Fleet, 373, 374. 
Eliot, Samuel A., 64. 
Elson, Dr. Louis, 158. 
Emerson, George B., 64. 
Emerson, Mary Moody, 311, 

352, 353. 



Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 312. 
Endicott, Gov. John, 215, 216. 
Enfield, Conn., 393. 
Erving, John, 230. 
Evans, Elizabeth, 276. 
Evelyn, John, 215. 
Everett, Edward, 64. 
Exeter, N. H., 410. 

Faneuil Hall, 408. 

Fast Day, 480-484. 

Feake, Henry, 320. 

Feke, Robert, 320. 

Fiske, Rev. Moses, 180. 

Fitch, Rev. Ebenezer, 99, 100. 

Fitchburg, Mass., 161, 162. 

Fleet, Thomas, 373, 374, 375. 

Flynt, Rev. Josiah, 387-392. 

Forbes, Elisha, 295. 

Forbes, Mrs. Harriette M., vi, 

125, 292. 
Forks, 259. 

Frankland, Sir Harry, 206, 286. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 140, 141, 

371. 
Franklin, James, 371. 
Freeman, Rev. James, 301. 
Fuller, Samuel, 456. 
Fulsom, Glorianna, 206, 207, 

208. 
Funerals, 453-471. 

Gale, Dr. Benjamin, 129. 
Garfield, James A., 101. 
Gay, Rev. Bunker, 467. 
George III, 340. 
Gilmor, Robert, 402-411. 
Goelet, Capt. Francis, 450, 451. 
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 340. 
Goodrich, Samuel G., 36. 
Goodwin, Mrs. Ichabod, 442. 
Goodwin, John, 360. 
Gookin, Parson, 388, 389, 390. 
Gott, Dr. Benjamin, 119, 120, 

121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 293. 
Gourand, Francois, 347, 348. 
Gray, Francis Colby, 348. 
Gregory, William, 394-402. 
Greeley, Horace, 423. 
Greenleaf, Stephen, 230. 



510 



INDEX 



Gridley, Jeremiah, 136, 460, 

461. 
Griswold, Gov. Matthew, 204, 

205. 
Groton, Mass., 179, 199. 
Grout, Joseph, 296. 

Hadley, Mass., 132. 
Hale, Benjamin, 392. 
Hale, Lord Chief Justice, 213. 
Hale, Robert, 351. 
Hallowell, Robert, 230. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 330. 
Hampton, N. H., 19. 
Hampton Falls, N. H., 389. 
Hancock, Dorothy Quincy, 325. 
Hancock, John, 104, 325, 330. 
Harding, Chester, 333, 334. 
Harris, Benjamin, 23, 24, 26. 
Harris, William, 356. 
Harrison, Peter, 189. 
Hart, Benjamin, 392. 
Hartford, Conn., 5, 129, 183, 

279, 393, 410, 411, 454. 
Harvard, Rev. John, 47, 48, 49. 
Harvard, Rev. Thomas, 367. 
Harvard College, 30, 45, 47-73, 

152, 154, 350, 387. 
Hatch, Mrs. M. R. P., 94. 
Hatfield, Mass., 303. 
Hathaway, Dr. Rufus, 468. 
Haverhill, Mass., 146, 410. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 107, 108, 

186, 272, 435. 
Hazard, Caroline, 257. 
Hazard, Robert, 256. 
Hazard, Thomas B., 142. 
Hazlitt, John, 335. 
Healy, G. P. A., 336. 
Hearsey, Jonathan, 65, 66, 67, 

68. 
Hempstead, Joshua, 298, 299, 

300. 
Higginson, Thomas Went worth, 

197. 
Hilton, Martha, 213. 
Hingham, Mass., 21, 146, 335. 
Hinsdale, N. H., 467. 
Hirst, Mary, 232. 
Hoar, President, 54, 115. 
Hodges, Almon D., 440. 



Holden, Oliver, 159, 160, 337, 

338 
Hollis', N. H., 227. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 237, 

449. 
Holyoke, Edward, 60. 
Honyman, Rev. James, 190, 191. 
Hooper, " King," 283. 
Hooper, Polly, 230. 
Hope, Sir John, 331. 
Hopkins, Mark, 100, 101. 
Hopkins, Rev. Samuel, 181, 

182. 
Hopkinton, N. H., 202, 227, 

423. 
Howe, Adam, 417. 
Howe, Jerusha, 417. 
Howe, Lyman, 413. 
Howe, Col. Thomas, 138. 
Howe, Sir William, 131. 
Hughes, Robert Ball, 338. 
Humphrevs, David, 80. 
Hunter, William, 128. 
Huntington, Arria S., 210. 
Huntington, Gov., 483. 
Huntington, Solomon, 420, 421. 
Huntington, Conn., 179. 
Huskings, 424-428. 
Hutchinson, Anne, 19, 172, 254, 

435. 
Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, 360, 

477, 487. 

Innkeepers, 137-139, 379-381, 

413-416. 
Ipswich, Mass., 7, 22, 119, 137, 

267, 280, 289, 290, 391. 
Irving, Washington, 38, 356, 

377, 500. 

Jack, John, 469. 

Jackson, E. Nevill, 340. 

James, Admiral Bartholomew, 

424. 
Jennings, Rev. Isaac, 194. 
Jewell, R«v. Jedediah, 267. 
Jewett, Rev. Jedidiah, 388. 
Jews, 188, 189, 190. 
" Johnny-cake," 262. 
Johnson, Clifton, vi, 44. 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 329. 



INDEX 



511 



Jones, Dr. John, 227. 
Joy, Major Moses, 220. 
Judson, Rev. Ephraim, 184. 

Killingsworth, Conn., 129, 402. 
Kimball, Gertrude Selwyn, 356. 
King, William, 343. 
King's Chapel, Boston, 150, 

301, 367, 503, 504. 
King's Church, Providence, 

R. I., 150, 287, 353, 354. 
Kirkland, President, 69. 
Kittredge, George Lyrnan, 429. 
Kneeland, Mrs. Anstis Eustis, 

210. 
Kneeland, William, 141. 
Knight, Sarah, 196, 378-383. 
Knox, Gen. Henry, 327. 

Lafayette, Gen. de, 441. 
Lancaster, Mass., 277. 
Lang, Andrew, 375. 
Lawrence, Amos, 190. 
Lawton, Frank J., 337. 
Lawyers, 135-137. 
Lebanon, Conn., 36. 
Lechford, Thomas, 135, 147, 

276. 
Leicester, Mass., 64, 102. 
Leverett, Pres. John, 58, 59, 

391. 
Lester, John, 99. 
Litchfield, Conn., 131. 
Lloyd, Dr. James, 131, 132, 304, 

305. 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 

107, 213, 336, 344, 413. 
Longmeadow, Mass., 192, 193. 
Lord, Nathan, 105. 
Love, William De Loss, 476, 478. 
Lovell, James, 325. 
Lowell, James Russell, 366. 
Lucas, John, 391. 
Luther, Martin, 495. 
Lyme, Conn., 402. 
Lynn, Mass., 233, 251, 320, 383, 

387, 409. 
Lyon, Richard, 154. 

McCurdy, Ljmde, 206. 
McKeen, Rev. Joseph, 105. 



Macphaedris, Capt. Archibald, 

238. 
Maine Medical School, lOG, 

107. 
Malbone, Edward C, 332, 333, 

336. 
Manchester, Mass., 203. 
Mann, Jonathan, 468. 
Manning, James, 83, 84, 86, 87. 
Marblehead, Mass., 60, 367, 

451. 
Marlborough, Mass., 120, 125, 

138, 293, 395, 415. 
Marshall, Emily, 335. 
Massasoit, 474. 
Mather, Cotton, 28, 45, 58, 

115, 117, 145, 150, 153, 179, 

188, 202, 208, 271, 319, 356- 

363, 366, 375, 427, 437, 438, 

455, 481, 485, 495, 498. 
Mather, Rev. Increase, 53, 56, 

57, 58, 136, 437, 438. 
Mather, Richard, 152. 
Mather, Dr. Samuel, 378. 
Maude, Daniel, 3. 
Maxwell, Rev. Samuel, 7. 
May, Samuel J., 64. 
Medford, Mass., 146. 
Mellish, John, 412. 
Merritt, John, 355. 
Middlebury College, 46, 109, 

110, 111. 
Middletown, Conn., 18. 
Mildmay, Sir Henry, 154. 
Millbury, Mass., 433. 
Mills, Rev. Jedidiah, 179. 
Minard, Peter S., 440. 
Miniatures, 332, 333, 336. 
Moffat, Thomas, 128. 
Moody, Eleazar, 263, 264. 
Morrison, Dr. Norman, 129. 
Morse, Rev. Jedediah, 30, 31. 
Morse, Richard C, 347. 
Morse, Samuel F. B., 333, 346, 

347. 
Morse, Sidney E., 347. 
" Mother Goose," 373, 374, 

375. 
Mourning rings, 456, 457. 
Music, 149-160, 418, 446, 447, 

448. 



512 



INDEX 



Nantucket, Mass., 234, 429- 

430, 431. 
Narragansett Pier, 258. 
Nason, Rev. Elias, 155. 
New Bedford, Mass., 233. 
Newbery, John, 374, 375. 
Newbury, Mass., 178, 238, 267, 

460, 489. 
Newburyport, 392, 401, 448, 

453. 
" New England Primer," 23- 

30. 
Newfane, Vt., 220. 
New Haven, Conn., 5, 7, 15, 74, 

75, 286, 394, 402, 411. 
New London, Conn., 271, 298, 

299, 401, 402. 
Newport, R. I., 5, 85, 127, 129, 

188, 189, 190, 191, 320, 400, 

403, 404, 491. 
Niepce, Joseph Nicephore, 346, 

347. 
Noble, John, 392. 
Northampton, Mass., 16, 132. 
Northborough, Mass., 125. 
Norwich, Conn., 270, 344. 
Nourse, Rebecca, 273. 

Oakes, President, 54. 

Occom, Samson, 93. 

Old Baptist Church, Providence, 

R. I., 88, 89. 
" Old Ship," Hingham, Mass., 

146. 
Old South Meeting House, 146, 

175, 176, 239, 455, 459, 477. 
Olney, Richard, 385. 
Ordination balls, 183, 438. 
Otis, Mrs. Harrison Gray, 336. 
Otis, James, 136, 464. 
O.xford, Mass., 419-422. 

Paine, Seth, 392. 
Palfrey, John G., 113. 
Palmer, Mass., 395. 
Parker, Eliza W., 228. 
Parker, Rev. Samuel, 407, 503. 
Parkman, Anna Sophia, 418. 
Parkman, Rev. Ebenezer, 292- 

298. 
Parmont, Philemon, 3, 6. 



Pawtucket, R. I., 399, 405. 
Peabody, Andrew P., 69, 70, 71, 

72. 
Peace Dale, R. I., 142. 
Peale, James, 332. 
Pease, Capt. Levi, 393. 
Pelham, Penelope, 211. 
Pelham, Peter, 319, 321, 323. 
Pemberton, Rev. Ebenezer, 477. 
Penn, Juliana, 231. 
Pepperell, William, 232. 
Percy, Earl, 132. 
Perrault, Charles, 375. 
Peters, Rev. Samuel, 73, 186, 

262, 500. 
Phelps, Hon. Charles, 209, 210, 

211. 
Philadelphia, 123. 
Phillips, Rev. Samuel, 462. 
Phillips, Wendell, 50, 484, 505. 
Physicians, 114-135. 
Pier, Arthur Stanwood, 61. 
Pierce, Franklin, 107, 108. 
Pierpont, Rev. John, 113, 345. 
Pittsfield, Mass., 102. 
Plymouth, Mass., 20, 145, 177, 

251, 291, 456, 481, 500. 
Porter, David, 454. 
Portland, Maine, 104, 107, 392, 

428, 488. 
Portsmouth, N. H., 238, 343, 

354, 387, 392, 409, 410, 441, 
442, 443, 488. 

Power, Col. Nicholas, 236. 
Prime, W. C, 220. 
Printers, 139, 140. 
Providence, R. L, 85, 87, 150, 
151, 235, 236, 266, 287, 353, 

355, 356, 384-386, 399, 400, 
404, 405, 439, 440, 443-445. 

" Pudding time," 261. 
Pumpkins, 258, 261, 262, 382, 

472, 473, 479. 
Punishments, 186, 187. 
Pyburg, Mrs., 341. 

Quilting-parties, 432, 433. 
Quincey, Edmund, 451. 
Quincy, Josiah, 393. 
Quincy, Mrs. Mary Miller, 339. 
Quincy, Mass., 286. 



INDEX 



513 



Raikes, Robert, 188. 
Randolph, Mass., 468. 
Rantoul, Robert S., 392. 
Ratcliffe, Rev. Robert, 459. 
Rauschner, John Christian, 337. 
Rawson, Edward, 213. 
Rawson, Sir Edward, 213. 
Rawson, Rebecca, 213, 214. 
Revere, Paul, 133. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 330. 
Ridgefield, Conn., 36. 
Riding mares, 257, 383. 
Riedesel, Baron, 264. 
Robinson, John, 329. 
Rochefoucault, Duke de la, 

415. 
Rogers, Rev. Nathaniel, 391. 
Rogers, William, 84. 
Rowe, John, 230, 449, 450, 460, 

461, 501, 502, 503. 
Rowley, Mass., 267, 387. 
Roxbury, Mass., 6. 
Royall, Mrs. Anne, 386, 387. 
Rumsey, Thomas, 214. 
Ruskin, John, 340. 
Russell, Eliza, 229. 
Russell, Gov. William, 483. 
Rust, Henry, 137 

Sailors, 142, 143. 

Salem, Mass., 15, 273, 408, 409, 

456, 457, 459, 489, 504. 
Salisbury, Stephen, 64-69, 312- 

318 
" Salt-Box House," 32, 34, 243, 

269, 376, 501. 
Salter, Thomas, 465. 
Saltonstall, Gov., 76. 
Sanborn, Kate, 462. 
Sargent, Lucius Manlius, 453, 

454. 
Sargent, Peter, 208, 209. 
Saybrook, Conn., 72, 73, 74, 

402. 
Scarborough, Maine, 272. 
Schools, 1-45. 
Scituate, Mass., 52. 
Scotland, Conn., 168. 
Seabury, Bishop, 482, 483. 
Sedgwick, Theodore, 99. 
Servants, 276-283. 



Sewall, David, 387, 388, 389, 
391. 

Sewali, Judith, 243. 

Sewall, Judge Samuel, 7, 51, 55, 
56, 57, 58, 136, 155, 156, 167, 
168, 171, 174, 178, 180, 208, 
209, 226, 232, 243, 249, 261, 
286, 289, 290, 319, 356, 437, 
447, 453, 456, 458, 459, 460, 
476, 478, 486, 492, 496. 

Sewall, Stephen, 391. 

Shakespeare, 350, 466. 

Sheep-shearings, 429-431. 

Shelburne, N. H., 35. 

Sheldon, George, 143. 

Shelton, Jane De Forest, vi, 32, 
243, 376, 501. 

Sherman, Rev. John, 179. 

Shirley, Mass., 337. 

Shoemakers, 142. 

Shrewsbury, Mass., 393, 478. 

Shrimpton, Henry, 243. 

Siasconset, 352. 

Silhouette, Etienne de, 339. 

Silhouettes, 339-346. 

Singing-Schools, 40, 418-422. 

Slicer, Adeline E. H., 164. 

Sluyter, Peter, 56. 

Smibert, John, 272, 319, 320. 

Smith, Dr. Nathan, 106. 

" Southworth and Hawes," 349. 

Sparks, Jared, 113. 

Spence, John Russell, 230. 

Spencer, Gov. John, 239. 

Spencer, Mass., 395. 

Springfield, Mass., 181, 193. 

Standish, Lora, 35. 

Stavers, Benjamin, 392. 

Stavers, John, 392. 

Stepney, Francis, 438. 

Sterling, Sir John, 206, 207. 

Sterling, Mass., 369. 

Stiles, Rev. Ezra, 141, 151, 178, 
488. 

Stiles, Dr. H. R., 200. 

Stonington, Conn., 401, 

Stratford, Conn., 206. 

Strat ford-on- A von, 48. 

Storer, Mrs. Ebenezer, 309, 310. 
Story, Jeremiah, 423. 
Story, Judge, 62. 



514 



INDEX 



Stoughton, Chief Justice, 136. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 505. 
St. Valentine's Day, 485, 486. 
Stuart, Gilbert, 272, 326, 327, 

328, 329, 334. 
Sudbury, Mass., 396, 413, 417. 
Sumner, Clement, 134. 
Sumner, Rev. Joseph, 478. 
Sumner, Mary Osgood, 310. 
Sunderland, Mass., 44. 
Surriage, Agnes, 206, 286. 
Sweatland, William, 273. 
Sykes, Reuben, 393. 

Table-manners, 263, 264, 382. 

Talleyrand, 328. 

Taunton, Mass., 184, 186. 

Taverns, 161, 162. 

Taylor, George, 287. 

Tea-drinking, 251-256. 

Teatts, Mrs. Hannah, 269, 

270. 
Temperance societies, 434. 
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 366. 
Thanksgiving, 451, 472-484. 
Theatres, 403, 406, 408, 442, 

443, 444, 445, 452, 464. 
Thomas, Isaiah, 156, 159, 376. 
Thomas, Robert Bailey, 134, 

135, 140, 369, 370, 424. 
Thomaston, Maine, 462. 
Thorndike, Mrs. Mary Quincy, 

339. 
Thornton, John, 94. 
Ticknor, George, 69. 
Tioli, John Baptist, 439, 440. 
Tisdale, Nathan, 36. 
Tobacco, 184, 185. 
Touro, Rev. Isaac, 189. 
Touro, Judah, 190. 
Trinity Church, Boston, 407. 
Trumbull, John, 36, 80, 324, 

329-332, 333. 
Trumbull, Governor Jonathan, 

141. 
Twining, Thomas, 411. 
Tudor, Dr. Elihu, 129, 130. 
Tudor, Deacon John, 288, 300, 

301. 
Turner, William, 439. 
Tute, Amos, 467. 



Tyler, Dr. Moses Coit, 358, 365, 

371. 
Tyler, Royall, 197. 

Upton, Jacob, 162. 

Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 24. 
Vanhomrigh, Hester, 92. 
Vane, Sir Harry, 50. 
Van Rensselaer, Mrs. John King, 

491. 
Vassalborough, Maine, 424, 
Vergoose, Elizabeth, 374. 
Vernon, Vt., 467. 
Vyall, John, 161. 

Wadsworth, Benjamin, 59, 60. 

Walker, James, 113. 

Wallis, Dr. Samuel, 119. 

Walpole, Horace, 337. 

Walpole, Mass., 399. 

Walsh, Robert, 346. 

Walter, Rev. William, 230, 501, 

502, 503. 
Wansey, Henry, 135. 
Ward, Hannah, 220. 
Wardell, Jonathan, 391. 
Warren, Mercy, 356. 
Warren, R. I., 84. 
Washburn, Emory, 101, 102, 

103. 
Washington, George, 24, 326, 

327, 406, 441, 461, 462. 
Waters, Henry F., 48. 
Waterston, R. C, 5. 
Watertown, Mass., 179, 396. 
Wax portraits, 336-339. 
Webster, Daniel, 96, 97, 335, 

336. 
Webster, Noah, 33, 422. 
Wedding rings, 202. 
Weeden, William B., 143, 250. 
Weimar, 340. 
Weld, Rev. Abijah, 179. 
Wells, Dr. John D., 106. 
Wendell, Jacob, 451. 
Wenham, Mass., 119. 
Wentworth, Gov. Benning, 213. 
Wentworth, Sir John, 94, 95. 
West, Benjamin, 327, 329, 330. 
Westborough, Mass., 292-298. 



W 88 



INDEX 



515 



Westerly, R. I., 400. 
Westminster, Vt., 220. 
Westport, Mass., 234. 
Wheatley, Phillis, 279. 
Wheelock, Eleazer, 92, 93, 94, 

95, 96, 97. 
Wheelock, John, 96. 
Wheelwright, Rev. John, 276. 
Whidden, Michael, 441. 
Whipple, Rev. Josiah, 389. 
White, Peregrine, 473. 
White, Susanna, 208. 
White, Rev. Thomas, 350. 
Whitefield, Rev. George, 60, 

254, 400, 401. 
Whitmore, William H., 374. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 215, 

479. 
Wickford, R. I., 162, 163. 
Wigglesworth, Michael, 365, 366, 

373. 
Wilkins, Comfort, 209. 
Willard, Capt. Aaron, 278. 
Willard, Samuel, 57, 58. 
Willard, Sidney, 63. 
Williams, Capt., 415. 
Williams, Eleazar, 193. 
Williams, Ephraim, 98. 
Williams, Eunice, 192. 
Williams, Roger, 82, 86, 128, 

185, 287. 
Williams, Rev. Stephen, 192, 

193. 



Williams, Thomas, 193. 
WUUams College, 46, 97-103. 
Wilson, Rev. John, 271. 
Windsor, Conn., 129, 130, 201, 

221. 
Winslow, Anna Green, 132, 180, 

231, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 

308, 309, 310, 486, 505. 
Winslow, Edward, 208. 
Winthrop, Gov. John, 4, 17, 216, 

217, 218, 239, 240, 241, 280, 

475. 
Winthrop, Wait, 271, 456. 
Winthrop, Maine, 183. 
Witchcraft, 358-361. 
Wither, George, 497. 
Woburn, Mass., 5, 20, 21, 32. 
Wolcott, Dr. Alexander, 129, 

130. 
Wolcott, Henry, 129. 
Wolcott, Gov. Roger, 129, 204. 
Wolcott, Ursula, 204, 205. 
Woodbridge, William, 18. 
Worcester, Mass., 120, 395, 410. 
Worth, Henry B., 233. 
Wrentham, Mass., 399. 
Wright, Patience Lovell, 337. 
Wynter, John, 280. 

Yale, Elihu, 75. 

Yale College, 18, 46, 72-82, 134, 

330, 411. 
York, Maine, 146, 220, 389. 



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